


first impressions

by myriadus



Series: searchlights [1]
Category: The Creatures | Cow Chop RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Brutal Murder, Car Chases, Codenames, Complete, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fake Chop, First Meetings, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Prequel, Robbery, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-02-15 05:42:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13024467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myriadus/pseuds/myriadus
Summary: They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and Aleks really tries to take that to heart.Five different first impressions, in five very different ways.





	1. trevor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAAAY welcome to the new (and my first) series! :D i've been working on this one for a bit, mostly just to figure out characters and plots and stuff, so this one's going to start a bit slow BUT i'm really excited to write fake chop and i hope yall like it! :>
> 
> thank u to hannah for listening to me rant abt this series and if you want to say hi come on over to my [tumblr!](http://myriadus.tumblr.com)
> 
>  **3/17/18:** happy st paddy's day, [averysadblog](http://averysadblog.tumblr.com) made a [video edit](https://www.instagram.com/p/BgaWX4uBDAw/?hl=en) of this chapter and it looks FUCKING BRILLIANT, please go watch it!!!

Aleks picks up a stray one night, and just sort of decides to never let him go.

It’s not that he had planned on rescuing some poor fuck stuck in the middle of a robbery. Aleks had heard the telltale “put your hands up!” from some asshole who doesn’t know what he’s doing and that had made him duck down quick. There had been only one person in the store, a younger kid that had been talking to the cashier, and Aleks takes a quick look at him when he squeaks and throws his hands up into the air. 

He’s got sad eyes, droopy like a basset hound, but they’re sweet somehow, a deep brown that catches Aleks’ attention before he’s really stopped to think about it. But then, Aleks rarely stops to think about anything. He mostly just _does,_ because _doing_ means you have to deal with the consequences in the moment, rather than worry about them before they’ve even had the time to happen. When you worry you suffer twice, or some shit like that. 

He sneaks another peek over the display of potato chips, watches how the other guy in the store points his shotgun right at the cashier, watches the kid squeeze his eyes shut and huff out a scared breath. 

Aleks sighs. Damn. And all he wanted was a pack of cigarettes.

No one’s noticed him yet, and he’s out of the way of what he assumes is the camera, so he reaches into his pocket, tugs out his bandana, unclips his sunglasses from his collar and slips them on. After that he covers up his face and then straightens up from where he’d been crouched, gets some of the cricks out while no one’s noticed him yet. Aleks isn’t the dashing hero type, really, and he knows he isn’t. But he sees this weird chubby kid with his sad eyes and he decides in that moment that he’s going to keep him, or at least get him out of this alive. 

Not before having some fun and scaring him a bit first, though. He’s got to find fun where he can.

His gun’s out, his mind is set, and there’s a bullet through the robber’s head before he’s had a chance to notice Aleks at all. The kid yelps, immediately goes to cover his head as Aleks stalks up, aims at the cashier, too. Might as well kill two birds with one stone. The poor guy yelps in fright, maybe has a kid or two, probably doesn’t speak English and came to America looking for a better life. Aleks sort of wishes he could relate.

“ _Open the register,_ ” he says in Russian, mostly to be intimidating, the rest to cover his own ass. The cashier cowers, and he can hear the kid make a soft, scared noise. But he must be smart, too, because he doesn’t try to run. Aleks counts to three in his head, and then speaks louder, lets his voice boom through the convenience store. “ _Now!_ ”

“Please,” the cashier says, and Aleks jerks with his gun towards the drawer. Aleks was right about the English; it’s thick and accented, terrified. “Please, I—”

Aleks cocks the gun. He knows all the tricks, knows how to use the right moves to get people to do what he wants, and the cashier shuts up instantly, shakes and cries and gathers up all the money in the register, shoves it at Aleks and then immediately goes back to cowering. Aleks sniffs once and then turns his gun briefly on the kid, who immediately twitches and yelps again. 

The gun clicks a little as Aleks uses it to gesture at the pile of money, and then aims it back at the kid, who looks at him with even wider eyes than before. Aleks just raises a brow, gestures again and acts like he doesn’t know a lick of English to make his intentions clear. He can hear the way the kid swallows and slowly starts to scuffle over. He doesn’t take his eyes off the gun, even when he’s gathering up all of the money and then holding it out towards Aleks.

“ _Put it in your pockets,_ ” Aleks says, points the gun at the kid’s pants. The kid stares at him, wide-eyed.

“I, I don’t—” 

Aleks raises the gun, fires a warning shot into the ceiling that sends plaster raining down onto the kid’s head and he screams just once, rolls his shoulders forward to protect himself. Aleks almost snickers at the way he shouts, “dude, what the _fuck!_ ” like, for just a brief moment, he’s forgotten that he’s got a gun aimed at his head. 

“ _In your pockets!_ ” Aleks repeats, louder than before, and the kid seems to get the hint because he lets out a shaky breath and then starts to shove the money in his pockets as directed. Even from here Aleks can see the tremble in his fingers, scared out of his wits, and he turns the gun back on the cashier. The man still has his hands up, still looks absolutely beside himself, like he’s about to shit his pants.

“ _I’m not going to kill you, calm down.”_ Aleks regards the cashier for a moment, and then speaks slowly, as thickly as he can. “Camera?” 

The man shakes his head quickly. 

“No, no, no camera.” 

Well, that’s bullshit, and Aleks certainly knows it. But it’ll keep the kid safe if the police have evidence that Aleks used him for the robbery, rather than having been a part of it, so he lets it slide. Instead he points the gun towards the kid again and nods his head towards the door with a breathy grunt. The kid looks like he wants to cry, has his hands up again now that all the money’s in his pockets, and up close Aleks can see how pale he is, the deep circles under his eyes. He looks absolutely batshit terrified, like he’s afraid he’s just a money mule and Aleks is going to shoot him right between the eyes as soon as they get out of dodge. Smart kid, to think like that, and Aleks huffs a bit of a laugh as he points the gun at the door, and then back again.

“Go,” he says easily, and the kid nods his head, makes a soft and scared little sound when Aleks presses the gun against the small of his back. Aleks turns his head back towards the cashier, still trembling in his shoes.

“ _You better kiss your kids tonight when you get home, if you’ve got any_ ,” Aleks tells him, and then jabs the kid in the back with his gun again.

The kid’s fucking huge, got to be at least four inches taller than him, but Aleks knows from personal experience that a gun can cow even the biggest of men in a second. So he pokes and he prods with the barrel until they reach his car, and then once he’s got the kid settled in his passenger seat he slides in himself and they peel off towards the highway. 

And, well, alright. So Aleks certainly has plans to sneakily startle the kid with his perfect English, but they reach the exit to I-49, where there’s a small amount of late-night traffic, and then there’s a familiar click of a gun from his right.

“Please stop the car,” the kid says, voice thick with fear, and Aleks blinks a couple of times. His own gun is still in his lap, heavy and comforting in its weight even if right now it’s totally useless. “I know you don’t understand me but, but I’ve got a gun and I just, I just want you to stop, please.” 

It’s probably the most polite way Aleks has even been held up, and he can’t help the wide grin as he pulls his mask down with one hand, shoves his sunglasses up onto his forehead.

“You had that on you the whole time?” he asks gleefully. “Holy shit, that’s awesome. Good for you.” 

“...oh,” the kid says quietly, almost to himself. He doesn’t lower the gun, though, nor his guard, and Aleks finds himself feeling proud. “I didn’t know you spoke English.” 

“I didn’t know you had a gun. Seriously, you’re fuckin’ smart, keeping that a secret.” He doesn’t slow the car down at all, and keeps his eyes on the road. “Never pull that shit when someone else has the upper hand, I would’ve had to shoot you and that would’ve sucked.” 

It’s silent for another moment in the car, and then when the kid speaks again, it’s entirely incredulous.

“Are you… are you giving me advice? When you’ve got me kidnapped in your car?” 

“I don’t got you anywhere,” Aleks says easily, and pulls into the left lane. “You’re the one with the gun on me, aren’t you? If anything you’re the one who’s got me kidnapped now.” 

It seems like the kid’s deliberating, like he’s not even sure Aleks is entirely in his right mind. He still keeps the gun up, and even though he’s sitting down Aleks can see that he’s got a proper hold on it. He’s got it aimed right at Aleks’ temple, using the Weaver stance as best as he can given the fact that he’s sitting down, and Aleks sneaks another peak at him. His dark eyes are illuminated by the streetlamps and the other cars on the highway rushing past as Aleks speeds near 70. 

“But you’re still driving,” the kid finally says, like he’s considering it. “Even though I asked you to pull over.”

“Where’d you learn to shoot?” Aleks asks, in lieu of answering, and he can hear the click of the gun, wonders if the kid’s taken the safety off or if he’s just trying to be intimidating. “You look like you know what you’re doing.”

“My dad taught me,” the kid says, swallows hard. “And my grandpa. They used to take me out hunting when I was little. Why haven’t you pulled over yet?”

“You’re not gonna shoot me,” Aleks says easily. “You shoot me, the car goes off the fuckin’ ramp. Nah, you’re smarter than that, don’t try to act like you’re not.”

The kid sighs out through his nose, and Aleks can hear him swallowing hard before the gun clicks a final time as the kid finally lowers it. Aleks tries not to smirk but it comes out anyway, and he pulls off an exit ramp. From next to him the kid slumps low in his seat, still has the gun in his hands as he turns to gaze out the window. He seems to have accepted his fate easily enough. Aleks glances over at him again, finds him sitting a bit like a child tired of a road trip; he’s managed to fold up his long legs into something that’s a bit cross-legged, but Aleks’ car is too small for that.

“So, like… are you going to kill me, or what?” the kid asks after a long pause, and he sounds a bit resigned to it. 

“Well, for starters, I didn’t kill you back in that fuckin’ convenience store, so no.” Aleks takes another left, and starts driving through the backroads. “But also, holy shit, dude. You just go around asking people that like it’s no big deal?”

Again the kid is quiet, like he’s thinking very hard about whatever it is he wants to say. When he speaks it’s measured, spoken softly into the car like he’s not sure he ought to be giving out this information.

“I mean… I was with that guy.” He shrugs. “And you killed _him_.”

Aleks is silent, eyebrows furrowed as he stares straight ahead and considers that for a moment or two. That’s not what he had expected at all.

“How old are you?” he asks, and the kid huffs a bit.

“Eighteen.” 

Jesus. Aleks was younger than that when he started in the life, but he damn sure had a good reason for it. A Russian rat’s got to be clever, or else he ends up dead. Some kid that’s probably from one of those weird states like Colorado or Utah, not so much. Especially if he had a dad and a grandpa that took him hunting more than once, probably has more family that loves him and yet he’s here, in Los Santos, stuck in a car with Aleks.

“You were the bait?” Aleks asks, without really asking. The kid nods, mouth thinning as he stares out the window, and Aleks feels… something he can’t quite put a name to. It might be pity, or maybe an undue fondness towards someone he doesn’t even know yet. It might be protectiveness. His eyes flick towards the inside of his own wrist for a second too long before he continues. “What’s your name?” 

It’s quiet, nothing but the sound of tires on gravel. Aleks stares out the windshield, both hands still on the wheel, breathes slow and easy as he turns out onto dirt paths.

“Trevor,” the kid says to the window at last, and Aleks feels both relief and dismay gurgle somewhere in his own chest as he fights the urge to look at his wrist again. The relief is the stronger of the two, and he drums his fingers on the wheel as they wait at a red light. They’ve both still got their guns in their laps, but while Aleks still has both hands on the wheel, Trevor’s got his gun resting lightly in his cupped fingers, and he’s fiddling absently with the watch on his left wrist. It’s just a little bit of a wall still up there, and Aleks gets the feeling it’ll take a lot to get it down.

“That your real name?” Aleks asks, gazing at the watch for a long moment. Trevor sighs at him, head going back with the motion of it before he thunks it on the window instead.

“Is this some kind of interrogation, dude? I’m over it.” 

“You don’t give your real name out in this business, you fuckin’ idiot,” Aleks snaps, a little harder than he means to. “Jesus, that’s like rule number one.”

“Stop giving me advice and just let me out,” Trevor returns instantly, sounds halfway annoyed, maybe still a little frightened. After all, he’s still being held in a car against his will, with some very illegal money in his pockets, and objectively Aleks probably looks like a fucking nutcase. “Just… this fuckin’ mentor thing is weird, dude.”

“Sorry.” Aleks shrugs. “You wanna go back, we can redo it? I’ll shoot you in the head or something.” 

The gun stays in Trevor’s one hand as he raises them both to his face and groans; he sounds exasperated, like he’d love nothing more than to open the door himself and just barrel roll out to his escape, or death, depending on how fast they start going again. Aleks knows when he’s being annoying, and he’s not even sure what draws him to this kid in the first place. But he’s also used to knowing when he’s got the upper hand and when he doesn’t, so he continues the line of questioning.

“Was that the first time you’ve done that?” 

“ _Stop_ ,” Trevor repeats, lowering his hands again and glaring. “Why the fuck do you care so much?” 

“Because a kid like you should be in his fuckin’ basement playing video games and getting high, not posing as bait for a no-life scumbag like that,” Aleks says. The words sound harsh, but they come out easily enough, like it’s just another day for him. And maybe it is. “But if you’re gonna do this shit, you need someone at your back or you’re gonna die really quick. Can’t run it alone, you know? Unless you’re me,” he adds thoughtfully, grinning a bit like a shark. 

Trevor snorts at him, turns his gun over in his hands.

“You a big shot?” 

“Maybe,” Aleks answers calmly, and shrugs. “You ever heard of Immortal?” 

The silence he gets for that is answer enough as he pulls to the side of the road. He swivels a bit in his seat and nearly bursts out laughing at the look of shock on Trevor’s face, like he’s trying desperately to understand the words Aleks has just said to him. Yeah, Aleks knows he has a bit of a reputation, and he’s not going to lie about it, but it’s still something to see such abject, stunned horror on someone’s face.

“You’re not Immortal,” Trevor says slowly, like he’s trying to work the words around swirling thoughts. “Dude, there’s straight up no freakin’ way.”

“That’s news to me.” Aleks finally unties his bandana and shoves it in his pocket, slips his sunglasses into the holder above his windshield. Trevor’s still gaping at him, and Aleks drums his hands on the wheel for a second before continuing. “I can take you home now, if you want. I just had to make sure we weren’t being followed.”

Trevor just keeps staring at him, like he doesn’t know what to say. They stare at each other for a second too long, and then Aleks watches as Trevor’s eyes flick to Aleks’ wrist. Aleks moves it a little so he can’t see the name there, waits instead for the answer. 

“Why, though?” Trevor finally asks, and Aleks can’t decide whether he’s relieved or not that some of the suspicion has left his tone. If anything it sounds a bit more curious, and Aleks can tell that Trevor’s attention has left the gun, even if it’s still held loosely in his hands. He shrugs.

“Dunno,” he admits, hands still on the wheel. “I dunno if you’re, like, looking for a noble answer or something but I can’t really give it to you.” 

That seems to be answer enough. Trevor stares at him for another long moment with his sad, sad eyes, and then sighs and looks out the window. Aleks had parked them out on the side of the road; there’s a lot of empty, flat land on either side, with the city glittering in the distance. Aleks has certainly always enjoyed the look of Los Santos, especially from far away. It seems like an inexplicable wonderland, with the huge pillars that are its skyscrapers, with the way that it lights up the cloudy sky above it. Amazing how something could look so beautiful, but be so rotten on the inside. 

Trevor’s voice is small.

“You’re not… I mean, I’m… it isn’t…” 

Aleks sniffs once.

“Nah.” He takes a quick look, finds Trevor fiddling with his watch again. He ignores the name on his own wrist, stares back out onto the road. “It's not yours.”

The breath that Trevor lets out is long and slow, through parted lips as he looks over at Aleks again. Aleks can’t tell if he’s just told Trevor what he wanted to hear, or if it was the worst news of his life. They look at each other for a long moment, and Aleks gets the feeling that this kid is going to be in his life for a long time. There’s something in the car that’s shifted, something he’s never quite felt before.

“You wanna go home now?” Aleks finally asks, pulling the car into drive again, and Trevor’s quiet for a minute longer before he answers.

“Yeah. I guess.” 

Trevor gives him an address and Aleks pulls away, considers turning on the radio just to get rid of the silence that’s come over the car. He takes another sidelong look and can’t help but feel pleased when he sees that Trevor’s let go of the gun entirely, and he’s just turning his watch over and over. The gun’s just resting in his lap now, more of a security measure than an actual threat, and Aleks… Aleks can’t help but wonder if it’s just because Trevor trusts too easily, or if it’s just because he just feels safe with Aleks. 

Aleks knows plenty of people who would advise against trusting him, and he’s included in that. There have been plenty of people he’s fucked over, plenty of people he’s left in the dust. He’s only twenty-three, but Aleks has a reputation, both one he has to live up to and one that’s going to follow him wherever he goes. He works with a group, but for the most part sticks to working alone.

He would _rather_ work alone, really, but… that might have to change.

“What’s your name?” Trevor asks into the quiet, and Aleks snorts.

“Thought I told you we don’t give that out.”

“Yeah, well.” Trevor huffs a little bit, shrugs his shoulders in a movement that Aleks only catches out of the corner of his eye. “I gave you mine. I dunno, maybe we can be on equal footing.” 

“Or you could get a, fuck, what’s it called…” Aleks trails off for a second before he remembers. “A pseudonym.”

“A pseudonym is for writing,” Trevor says, and it sounds a bit amused. “You mean cryptonym?” 

“Shut the fuck up, smartass.” Aleks takes a turn a little harder than necessary and Trevor yelps, thumps against the door. Aleks can feel his glare, and he snickers. “My point is, if you wanna do this shit for real, you need to have a _cryptonym_ so people don’t know who you really are. It protects you, you know?” 

Trevor’s silent again, but this time it’s more thoughtful than anything. He’s still twisting his watch over and over around his wrist, and Aleks has to ignore the motion as he takes another turn.

“I dunno,” Trevor says. “I don’t think I’m good enough to have a codename or whatever. Not like you.”

“Don’t be so modest,” Aleks replies easily, and they roll to a stop at a red light. “You didn’t shit your pants as far as I can tell, so you have that going for you.” Trevor snorts at that, just a little huff of laughter, but he smiles a bit proudly and when Aleks sneaks a peek, he catches sight of a dimple in Trevor’s left cheek. “What do you do, anyway? Besides be bait, obviously.” 

“I’m good with computers, I guess,” Trevor says after a moment. “I dunno. I came out here and I didn’t really have much of a plan. I can shoot a gun okay and I can track a phone.” 

“That’s all you need sometimes,” Aleks says, shrugging. They’ve made it into the shittier part of the city, guided by the directions Trevor gave him, and he looks out the top of the windshield when they’re at a red light again. It’s dark out, nearly midnight, and Aleks wishes he could find the twinkle of stars in the distant sky. They’ve always brought a comfort, reminded him of late nights in Moscow when it was so cold his breath froze to his lips. 

Trevor looks, too, and somewhere along the way he’d crossed his arms around his stomach. He looks… lonely, maybe. 

Finally Aleks rolls up to a shitty apartment building, with crumbling bricks and a flickering light above the one door. The stoop looks like the kind the homeless might pick out to stay for the night, and Aleks can’t help but eye the whole place with a bit of a sneer. It doesn’t look like the kind of place he’d ever want to live, but Trevor just sighs and takes his gun, slips it into a pocket that’s been sewn into the inside of his jacket.

“Oh,” Trevor says suddenly, and starts digging in his other pockets. Aleks watches as he pulls out the wads of cash, probably only a couple hundred dollars in the long run. But Trevor holds them out nonetheless, like it hadn’t even occurred to him to just keep it, or that he could pretend that he had forgotten it was with him the whole time. Aleks stares at all of it for a long moment before shrugging his shoulders.

“Nah,” he says. “You can keep it.” 

“But—“

“Another piece of advice,” Aleks says over him, and Trevor’s mouth snaps shut. “When someone gives you money, you don’t argue. Just take it, man. I don’t need it.” 

Trevor’s silent again, just staring at Aleks like he doesn’t quite know what to make of him before he slowly nods and slips the money back into his pockets. Aleks sighs loudly and reaches over, unclicks the glovebox so he can rummage around for a pen. 

“Gimme your hand,” he says, and Trevor blinks at him.

“...what?”

Aleks gestures at him, a bit impatiently.

“Just do it, man.” 

Trevor still stares at him for a moment before he hesitantly holds out his palm, and Aleks takes it. Trevor’s got big hands that match the rest of him, but they’re nice hands. It’s his left, and though Aleks catches the swirls of black on the inside of his wrist underneath the band of his watch, he doesn’t look farther than that. It’s none of his business. 

Instead Aleks scrawls his burner number onto the meatier part of Trevor’s palm. It’s better than paper, since it washes away, but gives Trevor a way out if he wants it. Trevor takes his hand back, stares at the number for a long time before he flicks his eyes up. Long lashes, Aleks can’t help but note.

“If you need me, you call me,” Aleks says as an explanation. “Or if you, you know, wanna actually do something in the business for real.” 

Trevor’s fingers curl into a gentle fist as he lets it fall into his lap, and he nods. The door clicks as he unlocks it, and Aleks watches as he slowly gets out, unfolds himself and steps out onto the pavement. He closes the door behind him with a gentleness that almost gets Aleks to laugh. 

He rolls down the window.

“Hey, Trevor.” 

Trevor turns, and Aleks leans onto the middle console, grins at him.

“Sasha,” he says, and Trevor raises his eyebrows a bit as Aleks continues. “My name, dumbass. It’s Sasha.” 

It takes a second, but then Trevor lets out another long, slow breath, and there’s true relief there. Whether he means to or not, Aleks watches as he curls his hand around his left wrist, around the watch. He nods once, almost to himself, and then grins almost shyly.

“I guess I’ll see you around, then, Sasha,” he says, and Aleks clicks his tongue at him and winks before rolling the window back up and peeling off. He keeps his hands locked firmly on the wheel, stares straight ahead as he makes his way back towards the Hub. Kootra’s undoubtedly going to be miffed when he finds out that Aleks gave his number to some kid, after engaging in something he had no business in, but Aleks can’t really find it in himself to care. Koots has been madder for less.

The city bustles around him, and as Aleks pulls back out into the quiet roads just outside it, he looks back briefly, takes in the sight of it. It’s dark everywhere around him, but Los Santos lights it up like a beacon. It’s pretty, almost.

A week later, his burner cell rings, and Aleks grins as he picks it up.

“So, theoretically,” Trevor says, and it sounds like he’s clicking a pen over and over, “if I wanted to, you know, do the whole real criminal thing, how exactly should I go about doing that?”

Aleks spins around in his chair, watches as the others go about their business. He slumps a bit and smirks, sniffs again as he looks down at the inside of his wrist. He’s memorized the black lines there, the delicate detail of the name, of this person that he’s never met. It won’t be so hard to convince the rest to let Trevor in, if he’s got a good word from Aleks. 

“First things first,” he says calmly. “Let’s get you a code name.”


	2. anna & asher

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all the kudos and the amazing feedback ; 3; i love yall so much aslgjkgs

“Hey. Wake up.”

Aleks jolts with a start, his chair dipping too low from underneath him. It’s one of those cushy ones, comfortable in this shithole of an office they’ve all found themselves in - and what the fuck is that about? What sort of gang has an _office_? - and it’s got wheels so he can fuck up and out of there when someone’s bored him. It’s helped in a pinch more than once. Right now, though, conversation seems unavoidable.

“Don’t do that,” he says, annoyed, and Kootra huffs a laugh at him. He’s got a grin like a cat, Kootra; something turned up at the edges that hints towards intentions that maybe aren’t the purest. He nudges Aleks’ chair with a foot, rocks him back and forth a bit.

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding very sorry at all. “Anyway, I need you.”

“Buy me dinner first,” Aleks says dryly, and runs his hands through his hair once. “Come on, Koots. Don’t you know how to treat a lady?”

“Hardy fricking har.” Kootra’s got his phone in his hands and he pokes at the screen for a second before he hands it over to Aleks. They all have burner phones now, and it’s a bit annoying. Aleks doesn’t really appreciate the hefty weight of a shitty convenience store phone in his back pocket, but he supposes it beats prison. “We got contact from some, ah, we’ll call them freelancers. They’re not bad, from what I understand. They asked if we could send one of our guys, said they could use a third pair of hands. Said they’d meet our guy in about thirty minutes at that location.”

“Sounds legit and not at all like a set-up,” Aleks notes sarcastically, and Kootra makes a face at him.

“You _know_ Shay checked them out first.”

“Why me?” Aleks says next, trying not to whine, and Kootra shrugs.

“You looked bored.”

Well, that’s truth enough, and Aleks tries not to scowl as he gazes down at the message. He works on his own whenever he can help it; even if he's been a part of the Creatures for years now, it doesn’t mean he’s _required_ to work with a team. Teams drag you down, and make it harder to move quick when the police are on their way. And when you’re apparently a team for hire, as Kootra seems to have decided they’re going to be, that makes it even harder to run away. Too many footprints to leave behind in the dirt.

“...whatever,” he says after a second or two, hands the phone back with a dull clap into Kootra’s hand. “I guess I’ll go. Anything to get out of here.”

Kootra tips his hat at him, the fuck.

“Much appreciated,” he says cheerfully, and Aleks wrinkles his nose at him before sighing and forcing himself up out of his chair. It’s better than sitting around doing nothing while he’s waiting for the next heist; at least this way he can get some action in and maybe make a couple extra bucks in the process.

His back cracks as he stretches it out for a second, all the way down to his toes before he shakes his hair out again. It’s getting way too long, practically falls into his eyes. He’ll have to get that fixed soon. For now, though, he’ll have to deal with some probably inexperienced “freelancers” who’ve never held a gun right before in their lives. He shoves a bunch of shit he might need into a pull string bag - wallet with a fake ID, an extra magazine, an extra burner phone if he needs it, a pack of smokes and a lighter.

Kootra watches curiously for a moment, and shifts a little as Aleks walks past him, bag slung over his shoulder. His voice stops Aleks, though.

“Hey, Immortal?”

Aleks turns to look at him, already exhausted, but Kootra just flashes him one of his not-so-innocent, Cheshire Cat grins.

“Try to behave yourself. Yeah?”

Trying not to roll his eyes is the most effort Aleks has put into anything today, and instead he gives Kootra a tight grin in response as he adjusts his bag over his shoulder. He can feel eyes on him, and not just from Kootra, but he ignores it.

“Yeah. Of course.”

The location that Kootra forwards to him is about twenty minutes away; it’s in an exceptionally shitty part of Los Santos, with lots of people peddling for money or stealing wallets in broad daylight. The sun’s beaming down when he gets into his car, heats up his black seats enough that it’s uncomfortable to sit down until he can start blasting the air conditioner. Stupid Kootra and his stupid _business_ in heisting. He kicks the car into drive and peels off.

It takes about five minutes before he’s lighting up a cigarette at a red light, which is funny in and of itself. He’s a criminal, already committed more crimes than he can really keep a tally of anymore, but he still waits at a red light. He takes a deep breath of smoke and lets it settle in his lungs, taps out some of the ashes outside his window. It’s a nice day out, it really is, fills his nose with the crisp, sharp scent of summer on the horizon past the smell of the smoke.

The light turns green, and he’s off again.

When he finally gets to the building, he takes a quick look at it up and down before parking a block away. It’s close enough away that he can make a break for it if he has to, but far enough away that his only way to get out quick won’t be in jeopardy. The walk to the building is a nice one, stretches out his legs a bit as he finishes off the cigarette and stubs it out under his shoe, stares up at the long panels of windows thoughtfully. A lot of the brick is starting to crumble in places, and he’s pretty sure there’s a piss stain near the stoop; there’s really nothing redeeming about it at all.

Part of him doesn’t want to open the door. Yeah, it may be the middle of the day, but that’s certainly never stopped anyone before when it comes to cold blooded murder on the beautiful, lovely, deadly streets of Los Santos. After a couple of seconds of contemplating it he slips his gun out from where he’d tucked it into his jeans, checks to make sure there’s a bullet in the chamber and more in the magazine before he locks the safety in and makes his way inside. Better safe than sorry.

The stairs creak as he walks, and with every step he grows a bit more anxious. There’s not a lot of life in this building, as far as he can tell. It seems like it’s probably an apartment building, but whether or not there are actually tenants living there is still up for debate. He gets the intense urge to pull another cigarette out, but he tapers it down. It’s too empty, and the smell could tip someone off that he’s here.

He thinks of Kootra’s grin, and of his parting words. This wasn’t a set-up, couldn’t be.

Could it be, though?

“I’m gonna fuckin’ murder him,” Aleks mutters to himself, and tries to find the apartment number from the message. Stupid fucking Kootra, and stupid Aleks for just blindly going on this stupid venture. He reaches the top of the stairs, finds the door he’s looking for with half the numbers missing; the only reason he can tell is because the paint’s faded around where the numbers used to be bolted down into the wood.

He takes a deep breath. Okay.

The door’s unlocked when he carefully slips inside. In retrospect, he should’ve knocked first, and the unlocked door should’ve been a hint, but hindsight’s 20/20 and Aleks has a bad habit of jumping into things before he’s had time to process what he ought to do instead. Inside it’s furnished, to a point. There’s a threadbare couch and some armchairs, a shitty TV that’s propped up on a cardboard box instead of any kind of entertainment center, a half-eaten box of take-out on a tacky coffee table. It smells vaguely like mold.

Slowly, Aleks lifts his gun, hitches his bag more securely onto his shoulder, slowly shifts into holding the gun with both hands. The TV’s off, and it’s quiet inside the apartment, but that doesn’t mean it’s empty. He tries to keep as quiet as possible, but the wood floor still creaks when he steps.

Aleks freezes, heart thumping too hard in his chest. He has no idea why he’s suddenly so anxious. He’s done this before, but usually he has _back-up,_ or at least someone ready to come get him at a moment’s notice if he needs it.

It’s starting to feel more and more like a set-up. Aleks stops just at the threshold into the kitchen and takes a deep breath, his back barely touching the wall behind him. He can’t hear anything, doesn’t know if anyone is here, but the door was unlocked for a reason and Aleks isn’t about to die today because he let his guard down.

He’s going to clear the apartment, and then he’s going to bitch out Kootra on the phone until his fucking ancestors hear him.

Slowly, he steps into the kitchen.

Even with his instincts on high alert, and his heart thumping in his chest, Aleks still isn’t prepared for the flurry of motion that hits him as soon as he crosses that threshold; one second he’s moving, and then the next his gun arm twists sharply behind him, while another strong arm hooks itself around his neck and tightens just enough that it’s a little hard to breathe. His bag hits the floor with a hard thump.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, he got ambushed, he’s about to goddamn _die._

“Drop it,” a voice says into his ear, like he’s a misbehaving dog with a toy in his mouth, and he’s shaken up just a bit. “Droooop iiiiit.”

“Fuck you,” Aleks chokes out, wiggling, but whoever’s holding him just sighs loudly and squeezes a bit tighter until there are spots dancing in Aleks’ vision. He gags, just a quick retch from lack of oxygen, and finally unfolds his hand, lets his gun clatter to the floor. It’s an acquiescence he’s not proud of, but Aleks will be damned before he goes out choked to death in a shitty apartment like this.

His captor shifts a little and kicks the gun away, where it’s immediately picked up by a woman, pretty and slim and with long, long hair twisted up into a bun high on her head. Aleks immediately grips the arm around his neck with both hands and tugs ineffectively, corners of his vision starting to prickle with black at the very corners. Still, he’s able to watch as the woman sighs loudly and then, in just a few quick and pristine motions, pops the magazine out of his gun and then disassembles it.

“I think that’s a new record,” his captor says curiously as she puts the slide on one side of the sink and then puts the rest of the gun on top of the fridge. The magazine, she pockets, and then she crosses her arms with a bit of a smirk as she regards them both. “Especially an M9, looks like. That’s military grade.”

“You’ve still got the high score,” she says, and nods. “Go on, let him go.”

The arm around his neck vanishes immediately and Aleks lets out a few hard coughs as he massages his throat before throwing an elbow out. It’s a good move, or at least he thinks it is, but once again he’s pulled into a headlock with a professional monotony that puts him to shame instantly.

“Come on, Ash,” the woman says, rolling her eyes. “Let him go.”

“He started it!” the guy replies immediately, sounding insulted, but he obediently releases Aleks, who chokes again. He rubs at his throat and glares, mostly at the woman because the guy’s still behind him, no doubt ready in case Aleks tries to lash out again.

“Are you Immortal?” the woman asks curiously, tilting her head, and Aleks glares at her.

“This how you typically greet potential partners?” he snaps, still gently massaging his throat. “Yes, I’m Immortal. Jesus.”

“Need all our bases covered,” the guy, Ash, behind him says, and Aleks turns to level him with a nasty look too. He’s as handsome as the girl is pretty, with striking brown eyes and birthmarks splattered across his face like flecks of paint. He gives Aleks a wolfish grin, seemingly unapologetic about the _two_ goddamn headlocks he had Aleks in within the last minute. “Hi.”

“Fuck off,” Aleks says, feeling cranky. “Did Kootra tell you to kick my fucking ass as soon as I got here?”

“Oh, no,” Ash says easily, shaking his head. “No, that’s more of a… like a safety precaution? Anyway, _you’re_ the one that walked in here with a gun out, we were just defending ourselves.”

“Unbelievable,” Aleks mutters. Just his luck that he’s going to be working with two fucking nutjobs.

The girl hefts herself easily onto the counter, leans back on her hands as she regards Aleks thoughtfully. Ash joins her by leaning up against the counter, arms crossing again. He’s got muscle bunching there, and there’s something lean and powerful about the girl that leads Aleks to believe she shouldn’t be underestimated just because she’s smaller.

Aleks gets the immediate feeling that these are two people who know each other in and out, two people who have worked with each other for a long, long time. He glances at their wrists, more out of instinct than anything, but he can’t make out the writing on their skin.

He sort of figures that he already knows.

“So you got names?” he asks, finally dropping his hand to instead shove both in his pockets. “Codenames or other, I don’t really fuckin’ care at this point.”

“Dynamite,” Ash says immediately, grinning like a hyena; it seems like he’s the type to always have a smile on his face, or at least one dancing in his eyes. “And she’s Ornate. Or... Intricate. Which one is it?”

She smiles, elbows her companion as she tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“Alternatively,” she says calmly, “Anna and Asher.”

“Yep. She’s Asher, I’m Anna.”

“Do you ever shut up?” Aleks asks a bit bitterly, and Ash _er_ shrugs his shoulders.

“Not particularly. Depends on the mood I’m in.”

The way that Anna rolls her eyes is fond, and she kicks her feet a bit against the cabinet doors underneath her as she looks over at him. Now that Aleks really looks, he can see a thin ball chain around Asher’s neck, tucked up underneath the collar of his shirt, and suddenly the headlock and the ease of it all makes a bit more sense. He runs a hand through his hair and sighs, squints at the both of them with his fingers still threaded there.

“What exactly did you need me for, then?”

“An extra gun is all,” Anna says simply. “We’re just doing one quick job, and Kootra owed us from work a few months ago. And now here you are.”

“Here I am,” Aleks mutters, and swoops down to pick up his bag. Now that he’s had time to think about it, it’s evident the two are professionals, or they’ve at least done this more than a couple of times. His gun attests to that; Aleks wouldn’t have really thought to put the different pieces in different places in the kitchen. It’s made it harder for him to get the upper hand, and he doesn’t have a spare gun in his bag. Just the magazine. They’re both watching every motion with rapt attention, even if they’re not moving otherwise, and Aleks feels… very exposed.

“What do you do, then?” he asks after another long stretch of silence.

Anna shrugs.

“Bit of this, bit of that, I guess. But,” and her smile is a bit sharp, “I’ve got a certain level of attachment to safes. Haven’t found one yet I can’t get into somehow.”

That could actually be pretty helpful, Aleks can’t help but think. They don’t have anyone at the Hub who can easily get into a safe. For the most part, they just blow shit up when push comes to shove. Asher’s a bit quieter now, like the comment from Aleks hushed him up a little bit, but he speaks up again.

“What do you do? Shoot things?”

“It’s what I’m good at,” Aleks says, glaring a little. “What are you, AWOL?”

Asher puts a hand to his heart, looking dramatically insulted as he blinks a few times and Anna stifles a grin into her shoulder. Aleks had been right about the ball chain, then; dog tags hidden under Asher’s t-shirt.

“I am absolutely not AWOL,” Asher says, pretending to be shocked, and Aleks… can’t help the grin, just a bit. “I’ll have you know I served this country and did my civic duty and all that before fucking right off, with distinction. I was _discharged._ Or something.”

“Seem a little young to be discharged,” Aleks notes.

Asher smiles a bit wryly.

“I was kind of bad at following directions,” he says simply, and even if he’d had Aleks in a headlock earlier, now he can’t help but feel a certain level of endearment - towards the both of them, really. They seem like two people he’d want to have in a pinch, seem like they’d be there for backup before you were finished with the call. Loyalty like that can be hard to find in the business they run.

“Well, alright,” Aleks says after a moment. “What exactly do you need me to do?”

The twin set of grins he gets are sweet, and yet somehow scary at the same time.

It’s a simple enough run, in the end. A jewelry store that’s been closed down for the last few days while the owner’s away for the week. Asher, while he’s on tiptoe atop a dumpster and carefully snipping the wires to the security camera, says he’s gone to spend some time in Tijuana, but whether or not Asher’s bullshitting or not is up for debate in Aleks’ head for a while after that.

Anna wasn’t lying about her skill with a lockpick; she gets them into the backdoor in less than a minute, and the alarm’s blaring before Asher’s got the cover off and more wires snipped. Whatever they taught him in his boot camp must’ve been fucked up, but it helps in the long run.

“We’ve got about ten minutes, I think,” Asher says after a moment, snapping the cover back into place with a loud click. “I know the police station’s kind of far from here, but I dunno if there’s any cops nearby. We’ll play it by ear.”

Aleks nods, and Anna’s gone in a split second, finding whatever room belongs to the owner and getting into it in short order. There’s lots of glittering jewelry in the front room, and Aleks stares at it a bit longingly. It’d be worth a pretty penny.

“Any reason why we’re doing this in broad daylight?” he asks, voice muffled by his bandana wrapped around his face, and Asher’s looking at all the jewelry too; he’s taking up the doorway to the room where Anna’s currently fiddling with a thick safe, her eyes focused and her hands sure.

“It’s fun,” Asher says a bit distantly, but then focuses again to grin at Aleks through his own mask; Aleks can see the fabric moving with it. “What’s life without a little bit of fun?”

Aleks’ mouth thins.

“You… really wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard that since I got into this business.”

Asher laughs; it’s bright and cheery, and Aleks finds himself growing more fond of both him and Anna by the minute. They’re good people, even if they’re… also pretty bad, and Aleks can’t help but think about how they’d do well with the Creatures if things weren’t trying to go to shit with this whole new office set-up.

Looking over his shoulder, Asher says, “can you watch this real quick?”

Aleks blinks at him, startled, but Asher just nods at the doorway again and then runs into the front room. It’s a quick movement but his footsteps barely make a sound, and Aleks jumps a bit before taking his place as a guard in front of the doorway. He can hear Anna’s triumphant “aha!” from inside, followed by the creak of an old, metal door swinging open; but beyond that are sirens.

“Right on time,” Aleks says loudly, his returned gun in hand. The sirens sound distant, but no doubt there. “We gotta go!”

“Coming,” Anna says quickly, and shoves a few papers from the safe into her purse along with whatever money’s left before she slams it closed again. It’s probably only a couple thousand, but it’s better than nothing. She’s wearing gloves, so there’s no wiping her prints away; instead she’s at Aleks’ side near instantly, looking around.

“Where’s Asher?”

“Right here,” Asher says quickly, appearing as if out of thin air. “Got it?”

She nods, shakes her bag a few times before they’re out the backdoor again, and it clicks shut behind them. Aleks follows the both of them as they bolt up a fire escape ladder, the two of them much more swift than he was expecting. Aleks tends to run away, instead of up, but he follows them as they scale the ladder like monkeys and then - to his intense shock - leap the distance between this roof and the other one. They’ve definitely done this before - cat burglars, and good at it, too.

Aleks is… less inclined to doing the jump, but he can hear the sirens getting close and so he just goes for it, praying the entire way. His feet hit solid rooftop and he tumbles onto his knees, a far less graceful landing than either of them, but they just laugh and tug him onto his back until they’re all lying down, hidden by the high brick wall that extends past the floor.

“Just lay low,” Asher says softly, and Aleks breathes out. “It’s gonna look like we didn’t take anything and they’ll leave after about fifteen minutes.”

“What _did_ you take?”

“Bank statements,” Anna says cheerfully; her long hair’s fanned out underneath her head. “It’s got all the info. By the time he comes back and realizes they - and the money - are gone, we’ll have total access to his account. Sometimes the simple way’s the best.”

“...I guess we also took these, too,” Asher adds after a bit of a pause, and reaches out to drop a little packet with diamond earrings onto Anna’s chest. They look… really expensive, and really pretty, and she picks them up and inspects them for a moment before laughing softly.

“You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

“Nope,” Asher replies, and it’s almost a happy chirp; he seems pleased that he’s not being yelled at. “I thought it would match mine.”

Aleks rolls his head on the pavement as they hear police scattering around underneath them. For the first time, he realizes that the ball chain’s left Asher’s neck, is now tucked neatly into Anna’s collar instead. He has no idea when they made that exchange, but there’s something… tender about it, maybe. Something sweet. She’s wearing a cuff around her left wrist now, but as she holds the earrings above her head and grins, Aleks once again can tell that he doesn’t really need to see their tattoos to know.

For one moment, for the first time since he was a child, he wants to know what that feels like.

They lay there for a little under half an hour, wait until it’s finally clear before they all slowly sit up. Aleks feels like he’s been utterly baked by the sun beaming down on him, feels like his goddamn face is going to peel off, but as they all peek over the edge of the roof he can’t help but laugh out loud. Asher and Anna join in too, and Aleks feels… lighter, somehow. Like not everything’s got to be business all the time.

“That was a good time, Immortal,” Asher tells him when they’re parting ways, and Aleks shakes his hand. He’s got half the money from the safe tucked safely in his bag, and the rest is with them. The dogtags are around Asher’s neck again, and Anna’s wearing the earrings; they glitter in the sunlight. The pair of them are standing close to each other, and Anna reaches out to shake his hand too as soon as Asher’s done. Her grip is as firm as Asher’s. “You ever need a pair of rotten thieves, hopefully we’re your first pick.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Aleks says, a bit teasing. “Maybe other thieves won’t try to pop my fuckin’ head off as soon as we meet.”

Asher winks at him.

“I can do it next time too, if you want.”

“I’ll pass,” Aleks tells him firmly, but he’s still smiling. They both wave as he leaves, heads back towards his car, and he… can’t help but notice that just for one moment, Asher takes Anna’s hand in his and squeezes. It’s a little gesture, and again there’s that ache in Aleks’ chest that he had buried away for far too long.

Aleks sighs a bit and slams his car door shut behind him, taps on the wheel a couple of times. The name on his wrist won’t change, and he knows that. It’s not worth staring at it yet again, and with eyes forward he heads back towards the Hub.

It’s mostly empty when he gets back. It’s late afternoon, and he’s sure one half’s gone home and the other’s probably setting up whatever heist they’re planning next, so he just heads towards his corner and dumps his bag on his desk, sighs as he twists his hair in his fingers for a second. He’s got a tan, two numbers programmed into his phone, and a thousand or so dollars now, but somehow he feels as if he’s lost something anyway.

The Hub’s never felt quite so… lonely, maybe, and then he’s startled as someone speaks.

“Back so soon?” The voice is a bit mocking. “You have fun?”

Aleks’ back stiffens before he turns, frowning hard before he plasters a forced grin onto his face.

“Of course I did,” he says, overly sweet, and Nova grins at him, twisting around in his chair across from Aleks’ desk. He’s chewing on a Twizzler, of all things, and he looks like he’s gotten a haircut; it’s sheared close to his head, and he’s tracking Aleks’ motions with sharp eyes. There are blueprints scattered here and there on his own desk, but all his attention is on Aleks. Quite suddenly Aleks wants out in the open again, wants to pretend he can spend his days anywhere but here.

“Well, good for you,” Nova finally says, and Aleks glares at him, just a little bit. “What’s life without a little bit of fun, huh?”

Aleks picks his bag up again.

“Yeah,” he says coldly. “I’ll see you later. Tell Kootra I got the job done.”

“Adios,” Nova says easily, but Aleks feels Nova’s eyes on him until the door slams shut behind him.


	3. brett

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please heed the graphic violence warning! there is an explicitly described fight scene with lots of blood and violence. 
> 
> also i never linked to my [tumblr](http://myriadus.tumblr.com) last chapter so there's that :'D thank u for all the support!!! ♥
> 
>  **3/13/18:** [how-fi](http://how-fi.tumblr.com) over on tumblr [drew some fanart](https://how-fi.tumblr.com/post/171815808372/spoiler-hes-not-gonna-shoot-based-on-myriadus) for this chapter and it's super good!!!

It’s raining hard, which Aleks hadn’t planned for, and now he’s soaked through to the bone and running for his fucking life.

The money’s still… mostly dry, which is a good thing at least. He should’ve checked the weather, but being relatively new to this business means that you don’t really stop to think about the truly finer details, and even when he looked up and saw that it was overcast as the sun started to set, it hadn’t actually occurred to him that it might actually fuck up his plans a little. He’d just never considered it.

Well, he’s learned his lesson now.

The thing is, it was different in Russia. It’s run differently all together in Russia, and dealing with snow is a lot different than dealing with rain. And more to the point, it’s not _supposed_ to rain all that much in Los Santos anyway, so it’s a double goddamn whammy on him and Aleks really has no way out. It’s dark, it’s storming and the only light he has to guide the way are the streetlamps, occasional cars, and the snap of lightning in the clouds above him. He keeps running, but he knows they’re catching up to him and he starts to weave in and out of the bit of people still on the street, takes random turns to run through alleyways and jumps up on dumpsters to throw himself over fences.

It’s the sound of his own shoes splashing sharply in the puddles as he runs that really make him realize how badly he’s fucked up. Overhead there’s another burst of thunder, rumbling through the air like a train on its tracks and he takes a hard left, can hear the splashing behind him as the other guys start to catch up. He stops only briefly, glances around in nothing short of panic before he takes off again, but that ends up being his mistake. He’s fast, real fast, but even Aleks can’t outrun them forever, and it’s right as he’s leaping onto a chain link fence that he’s bodily wrenched back and tossed onto the wet ground.

“You fucking - “ one of the guys starts, panting wildly, taking in huge breaths as he tries to kick at Aleks’ side; Aleks just does an odd little crabwalk, gets out of the way with his heart still thumping wildly in his chest. “You little shit. You’re fuckin’ quick, you know that?”

Aleks swears loudly in Russian. He knows English, he’s known English since he was eleven, even if he hasn’t quite gotten his American accent down yet. But if they think he can’t speak English, then they’re not going to try and question him, and that’s about the only leverage he has in his situation right now. Another hand grabs him roughly by the scruff of his sweater and his jacket, hauls him clear off his feet until he’s kicking and stretching to get his toes back onto the ground and then he’s slammed up hard against the brick wall of the building next to them.

It knocks all the wind right out of him and Aleks gapes silently for a second, struggling in vain to breathe and to get himself down at the same time. It all comes back to him at the same time and then he’s gasping, both hands wrapping around the wrist of the man holding him up. His feet aren’t touching the ground, and his face is scraped up along with the back of his head. He’s going to have bruises everywhere.

“Let’s try this again,” one of the men says, getting in close. “Where’s the money, you little bitch?”

Aleks spits at him.

“ _Blow me_ ,” he says, still in Russian, strained and choked but as intimidating as he can, “ _and then make a wish, fucker_.”

The hit to his face definitely involves a ring. It splits his cheek nice and pretty and he can feel hot blood pouring down the side of his face and dripping into his jacket, and he has to work his jaw a couple of times. He has no idea if any of them understood what he said, but the glob of saliva on the one dude’s face is probably what brought on the punch.

Aleks spits some of the blood that ran into the lines of his lips out onto the pavement and glares. He isn’t strong. He knows he isn’t. He’s still practically a kid, still learning this country and how to play its game, play its long haul, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to wriggle his way out of the calloused hands holding him up against the wall. The stack of money tucked in the waistband of his jeans wasn’t worth all this, either, and as Aleks looks into the eyes of the five men surrounding him, as they start to step closer, he realizes that maybe he’s about to die.

What a shit way to go.

He wiggles anyway, swears at them as loudly as he can. Aleks is no coward, and he’s no bitch. He’s going to go out kicking and screaming if he has to, not begging and pleading for his shit life. Better to die a petty thief in America than die in Russia a homeless street urchin. Fuck them. Fuck them all.

One of his feet catch a guy right in the crotch and he yelps loudly, backing away while the guy who’s holding Aleks up slams him a bit higher into the bricks. Aleks chokes and then kicks again.

“You think he’s a fuckin’ spy?” another one asks, squinting at Aleks suspiciously. “For Russia and all that?”

The guy holding Aleks against the wall grins widely, fingers tightening around his neck.

“Well, if he is, then we’ve just done our country a service,” he says, almost mildly, and Aleks wants to roll his eyes. “Can’t have Commies and Russian pigs running around this fine land.”

“ _You were born out your mom’s asshole,_ ” Aleks snarls, kicking wildly, and that’s the exact moment when a metal bat connects solidly with the man who’d asked if Aleks was a spy; specifically, it connects right with the top of his head.

His skull cracks like a watermelon, and Aleks is sprayed with blood that immediately has him sputtering and gagging. After that he’s dropped, ass landing right into the puddle underneath him and he immediately starts wiping the blood and brain matter off his face and out of his hair furiously, mortified. The rest of the men are starting to shout loudly, and Aleks really only looks up when the rain’s helped him to get cleaned off.

“Jesus,” he says out loud, tiny, scrambling back. There’s a man there now, a bit on the muscled side. He’s wearing tight jeans and black boots, has a blood-splattered t-shirt on and - and a fucking mask like a wolf, tilts his head in an eerie mirror of the animal itself as the men rush towards him. He’s got the metal bat in one hand and in a practiced, casual motion he twirls it by the handle in the one gloved palm, takes it and just bashes it right into the guy in front.

Aleks has seen some corny shit in his life before. He really has. But even with the mask, there’s something about how this man holds himself that makes it… scary. Chilling, even. He’s silent, just brings that bat down with ice-cold fury on one man’s shoulder - Aleks hears a deathly crunch that freezes all the blood in his veins as the lighting illuminates the man crumpling to the wet pavement and shrieking in agony. The thunder covers that, next.

He has half a mind to get up and run, but there’s a far more intense instinct dominating every other, and it’s the idea that this man is going to follow him once he’s done with the other four. Aleks doesn’t know if he could slink away in time and not have this man find him and bludgeon him to death, too, so he just sits on the wet ground and cowers a bit, wishing he had a gun on him now more than ever before.

It’s… quiet, afterwards. There’s only the gentle but harsh breathing of someone panting into a mask, and Aleks hesitantly peeks out from the protective cocoon he’s made with his arms. He’d pressed his face into his knees and just - maybe prayed, a bit, even if he doesn’t believe in that crap, because he’s young and things are different and he’s never seen _this_ before.

He’s met with black boots standing in front of him, splashed with dark blood that’s already running into pink rivers off and into the pavement. Aleks backs up immediately, pressed against the wall and tries to come up with something intimidating.

“Fuck off,” is what he says instead, weakly.

The man in the mask huffs out a soft bit of laughter, shoulders shaking with it before he reaches down. Aleks tries to wriggle away but he’s pulled up by his jacket into a standing position and, before he can really process it, there’s a gentle hand turning his face to the side to inspect the cut on his cheek.

“Damn,” the man says, muffled by the mask, high-pitched and dry, “that’s gonna be a hell of a shiner, bud.”

Aleks blinks.

The rain’s still pattering down as the man reaches up and removes the mask with one hand. Underneath is - Aleks has to blink again, get the rainwater out of his eyes, because underneath the mask this man is _handsome_ , wide nose and dark eyes, has black grease smeared on his face for the mask, has the dustings of a beard along his jaw. He’s only a little shorter than Aleks, but he makes up for it in sheer confidence, in something shining and mischievous in his eyes. A lot of the black’s already being washed away by sweat and rain, and he gives Aleks a smug grin as he takes a step back, tosses the mask near the mouth of the alleyway.

“You know, I have to give you a bit of credit,” he says calmly, twirling the bat again and then pointing it at Aleks for emphasis. “I’ve been tracking down these backstabbing fucks for, fuck, ages now, but I thought it was going to be a grueling process of killing them off one by one. Thanks for getting them all together, saved me a lot of time.”

“What?” Aleks says weakly, and watches as the man steps almost delicately over the body of the man who’d punched Aleks in the face. He doesn’t have much of a head left.

“Yeesh,” the man mutters, crouching down with the bat slung over one shoulder as he starts digging through the dead man’s pockets. “Maybe if you hadn’t been such a fucking asshole, George, that would’ve been a totally different conversation… aha.”

He removes a bunch of money out of the dead man’s wallet and then moves on, walking gingerly around all of the mangled corpses. Aleks just watches him, mostly, completely dumbfounded into silence. A lot of exceptionally weird things have happened to him in his life, but this… this really takes the cake, he thinks. He just watches, slowly bringing up a hand to rub at his cheek. It’s pulsing with pain, still, and it’s only just now stopped bleeding.

“Are you -” he pauses, unsure. The man turns to look at him a bit curiously. “Are you, like… a, a-a vigilante?”

The man throws his head back and laughs, full of delighted shock.

“What? No, no, fuck that - no, absolutely not,” he says, chuckling hard, and returns to looting the dead bodies while Aleks watches. He’s a bizarre man, and Aleks has no idea what to make of him. He saved his life, which Aleks has no choice but to appreciate, but the rest of him is just - absolutely so unexpected that he really doesn’t know what to do with it. The man continues, still giggling a bit at the idea of being a vigilante. “Nah, these fuckers just, uh, they left me in the dust on a job a few months ago. So now they got what they deserved.”

“Okay,” Aleks says faintly. “And… and you…?”

The man’s answer is distracted.

“Hundar.”

Aleks is still too new to the city to really recognize any of the names floating around - he knows about Mogar, and the Kingpin, and he’s heard whisperings of up-and-coming young men like Kootra and Nova, trying to make names for themselves and succeeding - but he doesn’t know about Hundar, and right now he’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Mostly he just watches as Hundar picks up all the money from the dead bodies and then sighs, stretches out a bit before looking over at Aleks with an eyebrow raised.

“What about you?”

Aleks hesitates.

“I’m… nobody,” he says finally, and Hundar snorts.

“Well, _Nobody,_ seemed like you’re definitely somebody since they chased your ass all the way to the north side.”

Aleks is… he’s willing to admit that he’s a bit afraid. He watched Hundar utterly brain five men with little to no effort for a slight he doesn’t know about yet; he can’t imagine what might happen if he says the wrong thing, or admits that he’s got a wad of cash still tucked into his belt. He doesn’t know what to do in this situation at all. He’s never been very good at being honest, but being honest might be the only thing that gets him out of this alive.

“...Sasha,” he says softly. “I’m - I’m Sasha.”

Hundar tilts his head a bit. He seems a bit interested.

“Sasha, huh?” He pulls a bit of a face, shrugs his shoulders as he looks at the carnage around him. “Okay, well, Sasha, if we’re going to continue this conversation we should probably do it elsewhere. The police don’t like me very much, for some reason.”

Feeling frozen in place, Aleks can only say in a small voice, “continue the - what?”

“Or not,” Hundar replies easily, stoops down to pick up his wolf mask. “But you and I really ought to talk about that cash you’ve got under your jacket, and why you stole from _these_ guys specifically.”

Aleks’ breath catches, and he stands frozen in place as Hundar turns, gives him a smile that’s… not quite warm, something not quite friendly. It reminds Aleks of a wolf, ironically, reminds him of how they stalk their prey and sink their teeth in, makes Aleks feel like he’s caught by the scruff of the neck with no chance of survival. He’s in dangerous territory, and the best thing to do is look for his nearest way out.

Carefully he navigates around the bodies like Hundar had done, eyes darting around to try and find an escape. It’s always been one of his strengths in situations like these; Aleks is slippery when he wants to be, and he’ll have to play it by ear.

Hundar sighs loudly.

“Will you relax? I’m not going to hurt you. Probably.”

Against his better judgement, Aleks scowls.

“Hey, no offense, but I just - I just watched you beat five men to death with a bat,” he says, a bit crossly. Hundar… smirks, oddly, and that just makes Aleks angrier. “So like… you’re gonna fuckin’ tell me to relax?”

“Yeah, I am,” he says, and leaves it at that. There’s enough casual control in it that Aleks huffs and crosses his arms, but doesn’t try to make a break for it. He follows after as they walk through the rain, and Aleks is just lamenting how soaked through he is when he’s abruptly stopped by a blood-sticky bat stopping just in front of his nose. It sets him a bit cross-eyed, and he gasps sharply.

“So,” Hundar says, calm, maybe a bit cordial, “any particular reason you took money from them specifically?”

Aleks makes a face, hands up like he’s at gunpoint.

“No,” he answers, staring him in this eyes. Power move, he’s heard it called. “They seemed rich. Rich men, they’re easy to steal from, and I don’t like rich men very much anyway.” He tilts his head. “Any reason why you turned their fuckin’ heads into mashed potato?”

Hundar’s smile is almost innocent, friendly even, and he really, really feels like the sort of person Aleks doesn’t want to cross.

“They left me to deal with the cops on a job a couple of months ago, and as I already mentioned, cops don’t like me very much.”

“Sounds like they were assholes,” Aleks replies, still with his hands up. He doesn’t have anything on him anyway, nothing he could use to defend himself except for how fast he can move, but Hundar just chuckles a bit to himself and lowers the bat, staring at him thoughtfully. They’re both basically having a staring contest at this point, and Aleks stands his ground and slowly puts his hands down again.

“Well,” Hundar says, shrugging his shoulders. They’re standing not far off from a black sedan, and in the distance Aleks hears someone scream in shock and horror. Hundar ignores it. “They were, yeah. Whatever. Take this as a favor, then, I guess. If I find out you sell me out to anyone - “

“I won’t,” Aleks says quickly, a little too quickly maybe. “I don’t - I don’t have anyone _to_ sell you out to. I run alone.”

Hundar squints at him.

“Jesus,” he mutters, almost to himself, and then addresses Aleks again. “How old are you?”

Aleks realizes how he must look, suddenly: a soaked rat with a cut and bruised face, dark hair in his eyes from the rain and too scrawny to be anything but a petty thief.

“Twenty,” he says quietly, and then hardens. “Things were much worse in Russia, believe me.”

“Yeah, well, I can only imagine,” Hundar replies, and opens the door to the sedan, tosses the mask and the bat into the backseat. “Don’t know why you’d want to come to this shithole but, more power to you, I guess.”

Aleks knows why. He does. The answer’s in the delicate black lines on the inside of his wrist, no matter what he wants to tell himself. A lot of it, of course, is because the stories of America had been mythical and mysterious, and even if he doesn’t know how to do anything else - even if he’s just an illegal immigrant making money by swiping it out of the pockets and purses of the rich and the snobbish, well. Call him Robin Hood, only he keeps it all for himself.

Before he can really stop himself, Aleks blurts, “what’s your real name?”

He gets quite a look for that one. Hundar turns fully to stare at him with his eyebrows furrowed, but Aleks gets to watch understanding dawn on his face in the darkness of the night. Immediately he looks… uncomfortable, perhaps, or even pitying, just a bit. The door closes softly, softer than he was expecting, and Hundar regards Aleks with that strange expression.

“That’s… not what this is at all about, kid. It’s just a favor,” he says slowly, and Aleks can’t help the pained face he makes.

“Just - “ he starts, then stops, doesn't continue.

Hundar sighs at him.

“You’re from Russia, you said?” he asks calmly, and Aleks hesitates before nodding. He doesn’t know why he wants the answer to this question so bad. He stopped - he stopped caring about his soulmate a long time ago, when the other kids would make fun of him for the name on his wrist, when he never thought he’d make it out in the first place to find whoever they might be.

“Yeah. Well, mine’s in English, not Russian, and it’s not Sasha either, so.” Hundar grins a little, something knowing, maybe something even softly apologetic. “Probably not. Right?”

Aleks isn’t necessarily sure why his heart falls the way it does. There’s a part of him that had wanted to believe in destiny - that a handsome man like this _could_ just swoop in out of nowhere, save his stupid life and then spare it because he just _knew_ somehow. That maybe jumping on a boat to America would somehow land him in the right place at the right time into the right arms to meet whoever his soulmate is, and his stomach drops as he realizes how hard it’s actually going to be.

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. Jackass. That’s why he gave up in the first place.

But Hundar sighs, runs a hand through his sopping wet hair before he rolls his eyes to the sky and says, closing them like he’s asking for patience, “it’s Brett. That’s all you’re getting. Does it make you feel better?”

“...I don’t know,” Aleks says finally, looking away. “I don’t think so. That was stupid for me to ask. Sorry.”

After a moment, Hundar - or Brett, Aleks isn’t sure which one to use - shrugs his shoulders. He doesn’t seem very upset, or even fazed at all; maybe just a bit sorry, for Aleks’ sake. The door slams shut as he turns to look at Aleks again, and his shoulders drop with a loud, dramatic sigh as he regards him again, eyebrows pinched together.

“Look,” he says, “I don’t know what you plan on doing exactly with your life, and I really kind of don’t care either, but I know plenty of guys who could use some sticky fingers.”

“I work alone,” Aleks says quickly, unused to kindness, and certainly unused to trust. He wouldn’t feel right running with a crew, and it wouldn’t - it wouldn’t feel safe, he doesn’t think. He doesn’t know anyone here, after all, save for an admittedly hostile sort of man with a penchant for masks and bats. If Aleks were a bit older he’d probably trust Brett as far as he could toss him, but he’s alone and he’s wet and his cheek still hurts so. Fuck it.

“You can’t work alone,” Brett scoffs, leaning against the sedan. His arms bulge a bit, like he might work out, and above them the rain starts to let up a little. “Can’t run it alone in this shit town, unless you’re me.”

“Why do _you_ care?”

“I just said I didn’t, actually. But,” he pauses, tilts his head forward with emphasis on the word, “I’m always looking to cash in favors and, no offense, you can’t pay up when you’re dead on the curb because you’re a proud, stubborn idiot.”

Aleks can feel his mouth thinning as he glares a little bit, and Brett sighs again, enormously.

“Also, you helped me out bashing their skulls in back there,” he says, long-suffering. “Even if all you did was stand there and look pretty. So that’s given you a little soft spot, right there. A tiny little black speck of a soft spot with _Sasha_ on it.” He points towards his chest with one hand, arms still crossed, and it almost gets Aleks to laugh. He rubs hard at his eyes, ignoring the stabbing pain the motion causes in his cheek before he speaks against his palms.

“It’s... it's Aleks, actually. Not Sasha,” he says finally, not looking up. “Since you gave yours, there’s mine.”

Brett chuckles.

“Sorry, Aleks,” he says, amused. “Still not the soulmate you’re looking for. I think I’m flattered, though.”

The rain’s finally stopped, nothing more than a gentle mist, and Aleks sighs out hard, gets some of the water off his lips and nose before he finally shakes his head like a wet dog. There’s still the huge wad of cash tucked into his belt, and he tugs up his shirt, takes it out. It’s valiantly stayed very dry, and he holds it out wordlessly.

Brett wrinkles his nose a bit.

“What… is that for, exactly?”

“You kind of seemed like you wanted it before.”

Brett snorts, clapping once like that amuses him.

“Yeah, no,” he says, pushing himself off the sedan as he starts to head towards the front seat. There are sirens in the distance now, and Aleks looks over his shoulder in worry. Brett, though, seems unfazed as he continues. “You can keep that, you got it fair and square. And it’s probably sweaty as fuck, too, so really? No thanks.”

Aleks looks back around, clutching the money hard enough in his hand that it crinkles a bit before he stuffs it back into his pockets. He knows what the police are coming for, and... well. The thought of getting arrested is not very comforting at all. He's not sure if he'd be tossed into prison or deported on the spot, and really he's not sure exactly which one is worse. He must have a bit of a lost puppy expression, because Brett looks at him hard, head tilted. The sirens are getting louder, bouncing off the concrete buildings that make up the city in an eerie way that surrounds them both in the dark night.

“You can get in, if you want,” Brett says after a second or two. “I don’t bite.”

“Yeah, hello?” Aleks says, immediately looking a gift horse in the mouth, as he does. “I watched you kill people?”

Brett rolls his eyes, laughing as he taps the door with one hand.

“Yeah, you did. You did." He smiles a charming smile. "But I didn’t bite.”

Well, he has a point there. Aleks looks over his shoulder again, sighs hard and loud, and then makes a dash for the car without thinking about it more thoroughly than that. It's more trust than he's used to expending on anyone, and he knows it, but the car will be warm and it'll take him far away from the cops. He can see Brett smiling almost to himself as he gets into the front seat, both of their doors slamming in unison.

It smells good in the car, somehow, smells new despite the blood-splattered combo of the bat and mask in the backseat, and Aleks watches out of the corner of his eye as Brett strips off his equally blood-covered t-shirt and then reaches back, pulls another one from the pocket in the back of his seat and then tugs that on. He’s got a tattoo on his right side, has muscle and tanned skin, and Aleks tries not to stare.

“Alright, Aleks,” Brett says, as soon as his head emerges from the collar of the shirt, moves to turn the car on and pull it into drive. “I think you’ve probably used two of your nine lives today. How many do you think you’ve got left?”

Aleks leans back in his seat and closes his eyes, feeling as the car smoothly comes to life and Brett takes off down the road.

“Are you kidding?” he says, suddenly exhausted, suddenly aware that his life’s taken a very hard turn. “I’ve got a lot more than nine lives. I’m fuckin’ immortal, dog.”

Brett huffs a laugh.

“We’ll see,” he mutters, and Aleks doesn’t open his eyes. Brett's words sound like they ought to be threatening, but they sound more like a dare. Aleks' mouth quirks in response, just a bit, and for the first time since he got here, he lets the tension out of his shoulders and finally relaxes. It's quiet in the car, save for its gentle hum and the tinny voice of the radio. He thinks long and hard, buzzing in his head as he considers all of his options, and while they're waiting at a red light, he breaks the silence. 

"So," Aleks says quietly, speaking to the ceiling, and Brett looks over at him. "Any openings for sticky fingers?" 

There's a moment of silent confusion, but then Brett looks back towards the road.

"Thought you weren't interested."

"I might reconsider."

"Well," Brett says, shrugging, and Aleks sits up, pays close attention. "I know one group, they're kind of starting out. They call themselves... oh fuck... the Creatures, I think? Could always work with them if you wanted." 

Aleks looks back out towards the road, where the streetlamps zoom by in bright yellow streaks, stares at them until they burn into his eyelids when he closes his eyes. 

"I guess." He grins a bit, opens them again. "You think they hold open auditions?"

Brett's smile grows slowly. 

"I happen to know of a  _very_ lucrative law firm downtown," he says, eyes still on the road, "that, were it to suddenly get robbed blind, would catch the attention of just about anyone in the game." 

Aleks smirks.

"Then count me interested," he says, and covers his wrist with his other palm. If Brett notices, he doesn't say anything, and Aleks... quite frankly, prefers it that way.


	4. lindsey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise things are going to make sense with the last chapter. I PROMISE.
> 
> as always!!! thank you so much to everyone who's following this story! it means the world to me!!! if you want to say hi, come on over to my [tumblr!](http://myriadus.tumblr.com)

He’s running.

More accurately, he’s driving. His foot’s to the floor and he’s just gunning it, driving down an empty stretch of desert road until his gas tank runs out, or the police catch him, but until then Aleks is just going to keep going. He has the windows down and it’s whipping his hair, his hood, it’s pricking at his skin like tiny bullets every time the sand gets in his face.

On the seat next to him, his phone is silent. It’d been ringing off the hook for hours but it’s finally cooled down. He’s got dozens of messages from Sly, he’s sure. Texts asking why he left, why he ditched, and the truth is that Aleks doesn’t have an answer for him. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to look Sly in the eyes right now, has nothing he can muster up.

There are probably more than a couple of texts from Trevor, who’s sure to be freaking out at this point, who has nowhere to go if not the Creatures, if not with Aleks. The kid’s going to follow Aleks wherever he goes, and right now that’s just - that’s too much responsibility for him. Aleks can’t deal with that. He’s going to have to apologize to Trevor later for just up and leaving him in the dust.

His hands grip on the steering wheel, and he glances over at his phone out of the corner of his eye.

Maybe one of the messages is from Nova.

Suddenly incensed, he yells out loud, one hard, low shriek into the dry desert air, hits his wheel with an open palm hard enough that the car honks. He’s nearing 120 with no cops in sight. Just endless desert, cacti, mountains in the distance, blue endless sky as far as he’s willing to look. If he tries hard enough he can forget the way Nova’s eyes had widened as he held his phone to his ear, the sudden, intense, _desperate_ quiet as he listened to the other line - fuck. Shit. Aleks doesn’t want to think about it anymore.

Aleks can’t do this. This is why he didn’t want a crew. This is why he wanted to run it alone, why he knew he _could._ He never needed a fucking crew, he just needed himself, he just needed a gun and his own chops and that was it. Nothing more, nothing less. And then he went ahead and got himself roped into it anyway, and now look. Look where it got him.

It got him here, right now, eyes suddenly blurry before he wipes them on his shoulder and then roars louder into the emptiness of the desert, roars over the angry groan of his engine.

For how long he keeps going, he’s not really so sure. He keeps replying it in his head, over and over, the phone call, the way that Nova had just stared at him but hadn’t really _seen_ him, the way he just listened to the other end - the way that Nova had just quietly, frantically started to talk, and Aleks just had to listen. He just had to fucking stand there and let it happen.

He fucking hates Nova. He does. But having to see that kind of _hurt_ in someone’s eyes -

Suddenly, with a lurch and a hard shudder, his car starts to slow. He’s still got his foot to the floor, he’s still trying to go as fast as he can, and he frowns hard, looks out through the windshield. There’s still a huge stretch of road, and with a grunt and a muttered “what the fuck,” he tries to speed up again. But it’s like his car just won’t listen to him; he cruises for a long time before he just hits the brakes and stops.

“What the fuck,” he says again, louder, and stares at his gas gauge. It’s not empty, and he knows it’s not empty, but when he presses down on the acceleration again his car just gives one short sputter and then just straight up fucking dies. He stares at his dashboard, wide-eyed and stunned. He had been saving up for a better car, had planned on using money from one of their later heists, but he hadn’t expected his old one to just - to just up and give up like that.

What happens next is… it’s something he’s not proud of.

Aleks, cocky, loudmouthed, arrogant, snotty Aleks Marchant, _Immortal,_ just fucking bursts into tears right there.

Not his greatest moment.

It’s just - he’s alone, stranded out in the middle of the desert by his own doing, and there’s no one watching, and the weight of the last day hits him with the force of a freight train, steals all the breath right out of his lungs. It’s that he’s frustrated with his car and he’s upset with himself for running like he always does, it’s that he’s left Trevor alone back at the Hub and surely he must hate Aleks right now, it’s that he’s _angry._

He’s so angry that he starts hitting his steering wheel over and over again, hits it until his hand hurts and then he keeps hitting it, just furious, empty tears streaming down his cheeks and coming out from the depths of his chest in the form of raw sobs and yells. Just last week they had been on top of the world, all of them, they’d been up and coming, they’d been _winning,_ and now Aleks is a fucking crying mess in the middle of nowhere.

The door clicks open as he lets himself out and then just screams out into the emptiness. It’s a roar of pain and anger and it’s heartbroken and loathsome all at the same time. It’s too many emotions for him to deal with, and so he lets it out just to try and get _rid_ of it. It’s something he doesn’t know _how_ to deal with, because Aleks had been alone for so long before joining a crew that this was never much of an issue. But now he has to deal with this crushing sorrow, this grief, this mind-numbing _anger_ thick in his chest, and he hates it. He _hates_ it.

“Fuck you!” he shouts, doesn’t know who he’s talking to. God, maybe. His car. Himself. Kootra and Shay, most likely. “Fuck you, you fucking - _fuck_! Fuck! You!”

He turns and deals his car a kick right into the door, leaves a dent that sends stinging pain all the way up to his thigh. But it releases something in him, some of the anger; it doesn’t fade, but it feels like he has an outlet for it now, and he just lights into his stupid fucking car. He kicks it and kicks it, snarls curses and cries the whole time because he doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to do. He has a bat in the trunk and he has half a mind to get it and just shatter the windows. He just wants something to distract him from all of _this._

When he’s done pouring all of his grief into his car door, he doesn’t feel any better. Now he’s got a dead car with a dented door, and nothing else to show for it. Just that, and a phone with a dumb flashing LED telling him he has messages. It’s all he has out here, now. He doesn’t know where else to go. He just stands there, panting, still crying a little, shivers wracking up and down his spine like the emotions inside are trying to burst out of his skin and escape into the world.

All he can see are Nova’s eyes. Big and brown and so full of grief that, for one moment, he looked fucking human. For one moment, Aleks hadn’t hated him anymore.

He’d just felt sorry.

The sun’s been baking him for the last ten minutes or so, and he’s already got a sunburn by the the time he can see a dust cloud approaching in the distance. It shimmers on the horizon, like a mirage, and he squints at it for a long moment. He’s not sure if it’s going to disappear or not, but as it gets closer he can focus on it more.

It’s a snazzy little car, bright yellow and cruising along the empty road with a pleasant, happy little hum. Not a damn care in the world, and Aleks hates it immediately. Somehow the world’s still turning, he supposes, and he frowns and turns his back.

He’s expecting the person to drive right on by, but he hears the crunching of gravel under tires and he sighs loudly, rubs at his eyes as he hears someone ask cheerfully, “car troubles?”

“Working on my tan,” he snaps, not turning around, and he gets a gentle snort.

“Yeah, no kidding.” When he hears a car door open he wants to groan, wants to cover his face. The last thing he needs is human interaction right now, especially when his face is still tacky with dried tears and he’s such a tornado of emotions that he’s genuinely not sure which one’s going to come out next. “Anyway, I know a thing or two about cars. Maybe I can help?”

“Whatever,” Aleks mutters, covers his eyes with a hand. “It’s a piece of shit anyway. Do what you want.”

He turns to find that the owner of the car’s a woman, pushing her sunglasses up onto her forehead. She’s pretty, bright blue eyes like the sky above them and a beauty mark on one cheek, long blond hair and brown roots. She makes a bit of a face at the dents in the door, but she manages to pry it open and pops the hood up. Aleks watches her, more out of the faint, deadened curiosity that comes with the emptiness after a good cry.

Aleks isn’t sure what he’s going to do now. He feels like the base of his spine is tightening, anxiety thrumming gently to the tips of his fingers. The Creatures are all he has, and after this, they’re not going to survive. When he swallows it’s like swallowing a handful of the rocks scattered around him, and he barely hears it when the girl starts to talk.

“Well, long story short,” she says, and reappears from behind the hood. At some point she’d tied her hair back. “You’ve got a pretty severe issue with your battery, and from the looks of it, it’s an expensive issue. Have you been keeping up on that? At all?”

Aleks blinks at her, and she laughs softly.

“Okay, I’m going to take that as a no,” she says, and slams the hood down again, leans forward on it thoughtfully. “I could bore you with the details, but I’m not in the mood, to be honest.” With that, she glances first down at her watch, and then out towards the way she came before turning back to look at him. “We’re about seventy miles outside Los Santos, I could give you a ride if you want, and you can… eventually get a tow truck. Not much else out here for you.”

At that, Aleks can’t help but laugh. Los Santos. The one place he was trying to get away from.

“I kinda just wanna stay here anyway,” he mumbles, looking down.

She scoffs.

“I mean, suit yourself,” she says casually, shrugging her shoulders, and somehow Aleks hadn’t been expecting such a blunt answer. “I have places to be, and not a lot of time to get there, so I’m not going to try and convince you. It’s really up to you.”

Aleks stares at her, mouth open a little in shock, and she shrugs, her eyes twinkling a bit. She knocks her sunglasses back down in front of her eyes and shrugs again, heading back towards her car. Aleks stares after her, eyes wide, as she gets back into her driver’s side and slams the door, leans out of her window.

“Listen,” she says, and Aleks absolutely fucking listens, his attention caught, “you can stay here, that’s up to you. But if you want to grab whatever shit’s in your car that’s important and tag along, that’s up to you, too. But you should probably make up your mind now, you know?”

Aleks looks back towards his car, and then at her again. Maybe a bit of the reality of his situation sets in, then. He’s stranded in the middle of the desert, who knows if the next person’s going to want to stop, and he can’t bear the thought of having to contact anyone from the Hub right now. He doesn’t know how to face them. He supposes he could call Brett, but he doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing, and Brett has a mind like a steel trap when it comes to someone owing him something. Aleks is already a few favors in, even if Brett owes him one or two himself.

Again, he thinks briefly of Nova, and his mind is set.

“Fuck it,” he says, and reaches into his car to grab his phone and a random piece of paper from the glove box. That, he sticks into the window and rolls it up again, lets it hang there before he takes one last look at his car. It’s beat to shit now from his tantrum, and he has enough time to feel bad about it before the girl honks her horn.

“Come on. I told you, I don’t have all day.”

Her car smells like new leather when he gets into the passenger’s side, and he’s barely slammed the door shut when she takes off, zooming away so quickly that it’s less than a minute before his car’s just a speck in the distance. He wipes at the corner of his eye with his palm, sighs and looks out the window with his phone cupped between his hands.

“Uh,” he finally says, after a couple of minutes, “thanks.”

She shrugs again.

“No problem. You kind of had the sad puppy eyes thing going,” she says casually, looks in the rearview mirror once before looking sideways at him. She seems kind, but very, very blunt. “I thought I could at least lend a hand.”

Aleks sighs a little, thumps his head against the window. Again his mind tries to drift away, tries to tug him back to what had made him drive off in the first place. His phone beeps again, and when he looks down at it he can see that this time it’s Brett’s name flashing up at him, and it’s not just a message. This time it’s a call. Aleks almost wants to answer it, if nothing else because he knows that Brett will be fucking pissed if he doesn’t, but after another ring he silently declines it.

“So,” and he turns to look at her again as she speaks, “We’ve got about an hour to kill. I’m Lindsey.”

Aleks is quiet for a moment, long enough that it gets awkward. There’s no point in him wondering. The name on his wrist is pretty much guaranteed to be a man’s, and so he’s not sure what to do.

“Okay, now, see, this is the part where you tell me your name,” Lindsey says after a moment, eyes still on the road. Her tone is a little bit teasing, and Aleks can almost find it in himself to laugh. Almost. She reminds him of the mom friend that reminds you to put your jacket on when it’s cold, but then turns around and does six shots of tequila in a row with no regard for personal safety.

“Sasha,” he mumbles, and she makes a little sound, like she’s just seen a puppy.

“Ohhh, beautiful. That’s such a nice name, especially for a guy,” she says, and he wants to roll his eyes. “Alright, Sasha, any reason you were just in the middle of nowhere? Where were you off to?”

“Is this an interrogation?” he asks, unable to stop the irritation from leaking into his voice, and Lindsey looks at him. “I feel very unsafe now.”

“You’re in _my_ car,” she points out, and rightfully so. “How do I know you’re not some vagrant or serial killer or something? I have to get all my angles covered.”

That’s funny enough that it gets Aleks to laugh a little, even though the weight has started to settle in his stomach like a balloon, expanding outwards until he feels breathless. He’s going back to Los Santos, going back to where it all started and where it’s all going to end. At least he gets to laugh about something. In his hands, his phone starts to ring again.

“I was just driving,” he says, but even he can hear the lie there. “I didn’t really… have a destination in mind.”

That answer is true enough, and she nods.

“It’s like that sometimes,” she says sagely, and he huffs out another laugh, leans his head against the window again. They’re quiet for a long time, long enough that it’s settled into a comfortable silence. The desert’s still zipping by when he looks out, and he can feel his own heart thumping in his chest when his messages finally light up again. It’s Trevor this time, and he gets rid of the notification before he can read it properly.

Lindsey clears her throat.

“Popular guy,” she says, a little too casually, and Aleks looks sideways at her.

“No,” he replies quietly after a moment. “Mostly just the same people.”

She purses her lips as if in agreement, nodding, and they gently settle into that comfortable silence again. Aleks lifts his arms and wraps them around his waist instead, staring at the console as he tries to think of… just nothing at all. All that keeps coming back to him, over and over again, is being at the Hub with Nova standing in front of him. Nova on his cellphone, and even now Aleks can still see the way that his hands are shaking with anger and horror all wrapped up in one.

“Koots,” he’d said, and there was panic in his voice, “don’t you fuckin’ _dare,_ you piece of shit, don’t - Kootra. Answer me. _Jordan._ Fucking _answer me._ ”

Aleks sniffs once and Lindsey sighs.

“Look,” she says, and her tone is… just this side of soft. “I mean, don’t take this as like, bold or anything, but if you need to get something off your chest, I’m all ears. Nothing like a stranger to air your grievances to, you know? I’m totally objective.”

He can’t help it. He laughs a bit.

“It’s complicated,” he mutters, tightens his arms a little, but Lindsey just shrugs.

“Life’s complicated,” she replies simply.

There’s silence in the car again, long enough that he can see the skyline of Los Santos in the distance, long enough that Aleks gets another text message. Sly. They’re all trying to reach him, trying to get through to him. Maybe they’re afraid for him, and he ought to answer if only because they don’t deserve that kind of panic on top of everything else they’re going through right now. Lindsey’s humming a little tune under her breath, and it’s so calming that Aleks could find it in himself to fall asleep if he wasn’t so wired.

Life is sure as shit complicated, but even more so are trying to find the words to describe it. They’re easy, in the end, but it hurts more than he was expecting it to.

“My friends died,” he says quietly, rolling his head to look out the window.

He hates himself for how his voice catches. All the lives he’s taken in the past, all the chaos he’s caused, the blood he’s spilled, but to suddenly be on the other side of it - he’s become a little bitch, unable to cope. But he’s never _done_ this before, never had to actually deal with the repercussions of it. So many bullets, so many knives, at least a dozen heads just utterly splattered by one bat, and the thing to ruin Aleks is the fact that two of his friends are dead and gone. Worst still was having to see the reaction from the person who cared about them the most.

He thinks about Nova’s expression again.

Lindsey’s silent for a moment or two. It seems like she’s contemplating what she wants to say to that; it’s a pretty big ball to drop on someone out of nowhere, especially someone you’ve never met, and Aleks sort of hopes that might bring the conversation to a halt. He doesn’t very much want to talk about it at all, anyway. His phone rings again - Brett. He ignores it.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she finally says, more of a sad little sigh than an actual response. “That… that sucks.”

Aleks feels his shoulders jump in a mockery of a laugh.

“Yeah.”

He’s spared any other reply when Lindsey’s phone starts to ring this time instead. She groans when she looks at the name, throws an apologetic glance Aleks’ way.

“Sorry,” she says again, “but I have to take this.”

Aleks waves a dismissive hand in her direction, rather glad for the distraction as she flips her phone open and brings it to her ear. He’s pretty much ready to check out mentally while she talks to whoever’s on the other end, his forehead against the cool glass of the window. Having said it out loud made it too real, and he’s not sure what to do with himself.

Kootra and Shay were both dead. There’s no getting past that.

He’s not sure he’d be able to.

“Jordan,” Nova had said, furious, standing in place, and Aleks hadn’t known that was Kootra’s real name. All he had heard were shots from the other end, sharp and clear as day. “You fucking answer me, you motherfucker - where are you? Where’s Seamus?” Aleks hadn’t known that was Shay’s real name, either. “You fucking - where _are you guys?_ Answer me, Jordan. _Jordan!_ ”

“Calm down,” Lindsey’s saying, and it rouses Aleks out of his reverie. “No, I know. Listen, I’m on my way back anyway, I’m like fifteen minutes out - shit,” she swears, and it sounds serious enough that Aleks zeroes in on it. “Yeah. Okay. How far?”

The person on the other end answers, and Lindsey curses again, looks over her shoulder before turning back again.

“Okay. Alright, yeah, no - calm down, B,” she says, and it’s soothing almost. “I’ll lose them. Just - focus on your own shit, okay? I’ll talk to you later. Yeah. Bye.”

The phone clicks loudly when she closes it again with an expert flick of her wrist. They sit in silence for maybe five minutes more, when it occurs to Aleks that she has a pretty old phone. Not many people carry flip-phones around nowadays. It’s pretty much like his, and - and maybe that still would’ve been innocent enough if not for her next words, which are, “Sasha, you ever been in a car chase before?”

Aleks stares at her. Well, technically, the answer’s yes, but that’s not what’s important.

“What?” he says, and she looks over her shoulder again. This time, Aleks does too, and when he sees red and blue flashing in the distance, and they’re coming on fast. He blinks a couple of times, mouth dropping open, and then looks back at her. She’s got a bit of an apologetic grin on her face, and the car starts to speed up.

This is really not Aleks’ best day.

“Sorry,” she says, and takes a sudden, hard left, “but I really don’t have time to drop you off.”

Aleks tumbles into the door with a yelp, reminded instantly of Kootra’s driving - and that hurts, that hurts more than he was expecting it to, hurts almost as much as the knob quickly growing on his fucking head from cracking it off the window - and she looks in the rearview mirror again.

“You might want to buckle your seatbelt,” she says, and Aleks immediately does so.

“You’re a fuckin’ - you’re a _goddamn,_ what, a fuckin' - a criminal? Are you a criminal?" When she doesn't answer, it's clear as day that's what's going on. "Are you fucking kidding me?” he snarls, clicking the buckle and raising his voice. She rolls her eyes. “You’re out of your goddamn mind, asking me if I’m a fucking serial killer when you’ve got the fuckin’ cops on you! What the fuck!”

“You have the look,” Lindsey defends immediately, taking another turn. The siren are growing louder, and Aleks is pretty sure that last turn was on two wheels. His heart’s in his throat. “You were in the middle of nowhere, how was I supposed to know? You could’ve been anybody! I was on the run!”

“I honestly can’t fucking believe this,” Aleks groans into his hands. “You’re gonna get us fucking arrested, this is unfuckingbelievable. Holy shit.”

“Look,” she says, still on the defensive, “to be fair, I really thought they were a lot farther behind me, I thought I’d get you here safely. Maybe my little detour to pick you up is why they caught up, okay? Just shut up and let me drive. Actually,” she interrupts any chance he might have of responding, looking contemplative, “have you ever shot a gun before?”

Aleks gapes at her.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he asks, instead of answering, because what the fuck? “Do you just ask people that all the time?”

“I usually have a co-pilot,” she explains, and her eyes are so deadly focused on the road that it’s scary. She’s masterful, in a really terrifying way - they’ve started to dart around cars on the road, and she hasn’t even clipped a single one. Her car’s pretty gaudy, though, and with the way it sticks out, they haven’t lost the police yet. Aleks stretches himself out to watch as they start to creep up on them, and he groans loudly.

“Give me the fucking gun,” he snaps, and she grins.

“Atta boy,” she says, and pops open the glovebox before opening the moonroof. The gun’s heavy when she hands it to him, but it’s loaded when he checks the chamber, and he sighs loudly.

“This is honestly the last fucking thing I wanted to do with my day,” he tells her, unbuckling his seatbelt and standing. “I’m fuckin’ grieving, _literally_ grieving, and you’re making me do this? You know how fucked up that is?”

“You don’t seem very traumatized by it,” she says, and wraps one arm around his shins to hold him steady, keeping her eyes still firmly on the road. “So you and I probably have a lot to talk about, don’t we, Sasha?”

“You’re the devil,” he tells her frankly, lining up his shot. “You know that? This is the devil’s work.”

She pinches his leg.

“Shoot the fucking cops already.”

One of the cop cars spins out in a glorious shower of sparks and skid marks when he manages to catch its front wheel, and its bumper smashes into another one of the cars. The wind’s whipping his hair again, his hoodie, but he watches the pile-up as it happens and part of it feels like justice. Justice for Kootra and Shay, maybe. He aims and fires the gun again, then again, empties the chamber as they speed away just to get some of that out of him, that sour poison still stuck in the back of his throat. When the rack pops up, when the chamber’s been totally empty, he lowers the gun again, stares at the mess of cars and people shouting.

They’d died in a surprise shootout with the cops. Nova had had to listen from the other end. And now Aleks had took some of them out himself. Poetic justice, that was the term for it. What he’d just dealt was poetic justice, but it did nothing to soothe the hurt, or fix the problem. Nova wasn’t here to see it, anyway, and Aleks gets the strong feeling it wouldn’t have mattered.

He’s mad, suddenly. He’s so fucking _mad_ that he nearly starts to cry again. He doesn’t want to deal with this anymore, doesn’t want to suffer through it, suffer through having a stupid crew when all it did was weigh you down, make you care about people just to lose them in the end. He clambers back into the car and tosses the empty gun into the backseat. He’s breathing too hard, adrenaline racing through his veins as fast as they’re going right now, and he doesn’t feel better at all. If anything, he feels worse.

They’re still dead, no matter how many cops Aleks kills.

“Nice shot,” Lindsey’s saying when he focuses in on her again. “You’ve done that before, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Aleks says quietly, slumped low in his seat. She hums gently, nodding her head as they drive away. His hands are shaking, mostly from the rush of it, and as he starts to come down he looks over at her. She’s got her eyes on the road, and she seems calm enough, but her eyes are bright and her skin’s a little flushed. Maybe she hadn’t really expected to get out of that one. They drive for a while, until they're sure the cops aren't following, and then she slowly brings them to a stop, breathes out slow.

"Jesus," she says, and leans her head back to laugh. "Sorry about that."

"Yeah, sorry," he echoes sarcastically. "Sorry definitely fuckin' covers it."

She smirks at him.

"I got you out, didn't I?"

He opens his mouth to answer, but the vibration from his phone stops him. He looks down, tugs it out from where it had gotten stuck under his thigh. He still has too many messages that he has to sort through, but a new one had popped up. It makes his heart thump too loud in his chest, and he swallows as he stares at it, as another one comes in, and then another.

_nova: where are you?_

_nova: answer me right now_

_nova: where the FUCK are you_

“Do you know who I am?” he asks after a moment, not looking up. He doesn’t really think it sounds very arrogant, but she snorts anyway.

“No idea,” she says calmly, shrugging. It’s sincere, he can tell, and somehow that’s… cathartic, in a way. He misses when he wasn’t anybody at all. A faceless, nameless entity in the city, before the Creatures, before all of this started, before this mess of a situation that he’s found himself in. “Should I?”

He stares at the messages, really stares at them and what they mean. He’d heard them spoken out loud, and though he knows he’s never going to mean anything to Nova like what Kootra and Shay meant, it still feels… it feels almost something like when they had first met. When Nova had looked at him with bright eyes, an interested expression, had straightened a little bit.

Nova had _smiled_ at him, when they first met.

Aleks is full of such a sudden rage that he can’t handle it. It burns in his chest, writhes there furiously as he stares down at the texts. Nova had no business acting like he cared, not after what he’d done to Aleks, and it feels like the whitest, hottest rage to see this - this _lie,_ this pathetic attempt at taking control of the situation, at trying to bridge the gap that he had created himself. Aleks wants nothing to do with him, nothing to do with the Creatures anymore. They were done for, anyway.

He had never realized, up until this moment, how much he didn’t want this anymore. How he had only stayed for - for reasons he doesn’t really know anymore. He had felt trapped, had wanted to escape before he’d even realized it. Trevor had been a nice change, but now… now Aleks just wants out. He wants to run away again, but this time he wants to do it for good. He wants to escape this pain in his chest before it expands farther, before more people die, before he reduces himself to ashes burning up in what it takes to care about someone else. And again, he thinks of the tattoo on his wrist, that person still out there somewhere.

Aleks never wants to find him, whoever he might be.

He types out a response before he can stop himself, while Lindsey watches out of the corner of her eye.

_i quit_

“No,” he answers, closing his phone with a hard snap, and he feels a weight off his chest that he hadn’t known was there. “I’m not that important, anyway.”


	5. nova

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY IT'S SO LATE, SORRY IT'S DEPRESSING, BUT HOPEFULLY THE CHAPTER LENGTH AND THE BIT OF SMUT MAKES UP FOR IT???
> 
> anyway!!!! after this there will be a short break while i write the next part of the series, which i'll be discussing real soon over on [ tumblr](http://myriadus.tumblr.com)! thanks for sticking around! :D if you have questions, they may very well be answered in the next part! ;D
> 
>  **EDIT 2/22/18:** RAGECUTIE STRIKES AGAIN PLEASE WATCH [THIS VIDEO](https://ragecutie.tumblr.com/post/171172030658/this-edit-is-based-on-myriadus-fic-first) BECAUSE I AM NEAR TEARS TO BE QUITE HONEST

Aleks finally meets Kootra in person, both of them soaked in blood and rainwater, a little after he turns twenty-one.

It’s a rather typical first meeting of two young criminals, as far as that sort of thing goes: they both have guns aimed at each other and they’re both panting hard in the shock and unassured fear of not knowing if they’re about to die or if they can talk their way out of it. Aleks’ heart is pounding in his chest, and the blood’s started to flow, thick and copper-tasting, on and down past his lips. He doesn’t lower his gun.

They stare at each other for a second longer than they should, and then - Kootra’s gun clicks as he instead puts both hands up in the air. He’s still got his gun, but it’s not pointed at Aleks anymore, and Aleks gets a closer look at him. He’s got a charming smile, a handsome, scruffy face, pretty blue eyes that look like they could be soft. There’s something there in those eyes, though, that keeps Aleks’ own gun up. Something that tells him not to trust him.

“Whoa, there,” Kootra says, and he sounds cordial, friendly even. “Sorry about that, man. I thought you were someone else.”

There’s a pause before Aleks narrows his eyes. They’re in a lobby, some empty lobby of some business building that Aleks doesn’t recognize. He keeps his gun up, shifts a little and takes that split second to wipe his wet hair out of his eyes before he stares Kootra down. Kootra’s still just smiling at him, placating, maybe, like Aleks is a wild animal and he’s going to try and tame him.

They’re dripping onto the tile underneath them, a gentle little sound. Kootra hasn’t moved his hands away from where they’re raised, but he watches Aleks’ every move - or lack thereof, really. He’s still just standing, trying to take stock. Kootra’s tall, much taller than Aleks, and he’s got his gun, but he’s effectively useless to himself now that he’s basically surrendered.

“Immortal, right?” Kootra asks, after a long note of silence. “We were going to meet tonight? But we kind of got, uh, we got interrupted, didn’t we?”

Aleks doesn’t move.

“Look,” Kootra says, sounds calm, “how about you put that down, and we talk? Does that sound alright with you? Because,” and here he smiles, “I would sure appreciate if you got that gun out of my face.”

Aleks snorts, keeps the gun firmly held up, narrows his eyes a little bit as he watches Kootra shift just a tiny bit.

“And why the fuck should I do that?”

Kootra just smiles at him, nods his head a little without ever breaking their eye contact.

“Because if you don’t, then my associate here will shoot your brains out,” he says evenly, and there’s a click just behind Aleks’ ear.

He freezes immediately, heart thumping too loudly in his chest as he feels the cold barrel of a gun press very, very light against the back of his head. Kootra’s got a smug smile like a cat now, the corners turned up and his eyes glittering even while he still doesn’t move; Aleks doesn’t, either, though he keeps his gun up anyway.

That seems to be the wrong move, because a voice says behind him, with a casual air, “if I were you, just speaking personally? I’d put the gun down.”

The owner of the voice has a lilt, something a bit like American Southern, and Aleks isn’t really sure what to do here. He makes himself completely vulnerable if he lets go of his gun, but if he doesn’t then he gets his brains blown out, and unfortunately he needs those quite a bit. Kootra’s just watching his motions with those bright eyes of his, hair plastered to his forehead as he calmly reaches out, puts his gun down on the empty front desk and then turns back slowly, hands still in the air.

“We can reach a compromise,” he says evenly, “or you can die. I guess it’s up to you. Right?”

Aleks scowls, but he mimics what Kootra had done earlier and lifts his arms back so that he’s surrendering, drops his gun to the floor with a loud clatter. He feels like a trapped rat, and without breaking eye contact he spits some of the water and blood out of his mouth. Kootra makes a bit of a disgusted face, but he nods to his comrade behind him, and the gun’s lifted away from the back of Aleks’ skull.

“You don’t fuckin’ play fair,” he says sourly, immediately reaching up to rub where the gun had pressed in. Kootra gives him a pleasant little grin and watches as Aleks sniffs hard, rubs at his nosebleed and then sighs loudly, There are wet footsteps from behind him, and Aleks looks over his shoulder and glares.

“Come on. Playing fair is _boring_ ,” the guy scoffs. He’s soaked, too, wearing lots of layers that make him look bigger, and he’s got sheared black hair and a bit of a beard, tanned skin and big brown eyes that look Aleks up and down. If Aleks had to guess, he’d say this is probably Kootra’s partner everyone talks so much about, Nova. Aleks has heard plenty about him, but to meet him in person is a bit… underwhelming. He just has a supremely unimpressed look on his face, and that riles Aleks up a little bit, enough that he sneers.

“Afraid that if you did, I’d pop your fuckin’ ass?”

Nova blinks at him, then narrows his eyes as he looks Aleks up and down again, while Kootra sighs loudly from behind them.

“What the fuck?” Nova asks, sounding particularly disagreeable. They glare at each other. “No, I’m absolutely fuckin’ not. And where the hell are you from, with a stupid fuckin’ accent like that?”

“Russia, you bitch, it’s called being _bilingual_ ,” Aleks snaps back, feeling angry, feeling like he’d quite like to throttle him. “What about you? Sound like you’re out of _Brokeback_ fuckin’ _Mountain._ ”

Kootra coughs loudly, hiding a laugh, but Nova just looks at him some more, a crease between his eyebrows as he straightens out his back, lowers his gun and says, “Pennsylvania. And don’t call me a bitch.”

Aleks has a reply waiting on the tip of his tongue, but before he or Nova can say anything else there are gunshots from outside, and the three of them whip around. It’s still pretty dark in the lobby, all things considered, but as the three of them watch through the big glass doors, there are flashlights cutting through the rain; probably police flashlights, and Aleks swoops down to grab his gun before he slides himself over the length of the lobby desk and then behind it. It was more of a reaction than a planned response, if he’s to be perfectly honest, but he hears Kootra hiss something and then there’s a loud thump from above and behind and then another warm body next to him, and Aleks is aiming his gun again.

“Will you fucking put that down?” Nova hisses, like it doesn’t even matter. From the other side of the room, Kootra’s plastered to the wall right next to the doors, looking out with careful, sharp movements that jitter every time a flashlight looks inside. “Jesus Christ, last thing I need is for you to cap me in the goddamn ass while we’re hiding from the fucking _cops._ ”

“You just had a gun to _my_ head,” Aleks snaps, but quiets down despite how much he doesn’t want to. Nova’s eyes are reflecting what little light there is in the darkness, and they’re close enough together under the desk that Aleks can feel the warmth coming off him. Aleks can see that he’s handsome, incredibly so and especially up close, but that’s sort of outweighed by the attitude, so he just sneers and looks carefully around the bottom of the desk again.

“I had a gun to your head because you had a gun to _his_ head, dumbass. That was just a whole thing, did you forget already?”

“Look, can you shut the fuck up?” Aleks glares over his shoulder, and he feels a bit angrier when he sees the way that Nova smiles at him. It’s a bit sharp, and it’s definitely irritating, like he’s just saying whatever he wants purely to piss Aleks off. “If you get us caught I’m gonna beat your ass. Hear?”

“Heard,” Nova replies, still grinning. “If you even _can,_ you scrawny fuck.”

“Hello? Excuse me? You think I can’t beat your ass?”

“You’re, like… twelve. So no.”

“Unnecessary loudness coming from your side of the room,” Kootra says in a tense voice, barely above a whisper. “Really, _really_ unnecessary loudness.”

Nova makes an irritable little noise, rolling his eyes, but he clamps his mouth shut and carefully cranes over the edge of the desk. Aleks can see his wide eyes darting back and forth, taking in the situation as the cops run past. He’s the only one of the three of them not covered in blood, too, but their clothes still drip onto the floor and make a pink puddle underneath them. Nova looks back over at him, and there might be something that softens in his expression.

“Your nose is still bleeding.”

Aleks raises a hand immediately, tries to stem the flow with the side of his palm as they regard each other for a moment. There’s still a pretty steady drip going on, past his hand and onto his collar; Aleks sniffs and then stills when the flashlights briefly turn into the lobby. He can hear Kootra flattening himself up against the wall again, and Aleks chokes briefly when a hand grabs him and pulls him back just in time for the beam of light to sweep over where he’d just been.

“Dude, what the fuck,” he snaps in as quiet a voice as he can, expression dirty as Nova lets go of his shirt. Nova had practically pulled him into his lap, and Aleks huffs and pushes away, gives them a bit of space again.

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Nova mutters, and Aleks glares at him a bit, but he just keeps going. “So. Russia, huh? The fuck brought you here?”

“Oh, we’re having casual conversation?” Aleks replies dryly, ignoring the question.

“We’re stuck in here until the cops fuckin’ leave or bust us, and Koots is on the other side of the room and he ain’t much of a conversationalist anyway, mostly just likes to hear _himself_ talk, so, yeah.” He tilts his head a bit, still regarding Aleks thoughtfully, like he’s not sure what to make of him. “He said you were Immortal. You still thinkin’ about joining us, then?”

Aleks pinches his nose, tilts his head back.

“I was gonna talk about maybe joining you guys for some runs,” he says, voice nasally. The blood runs down the back of his throat and he coughs as quietly as he can, swallows the glob of spit even though it’s absolutely disgusting. “But you know, didn’t fuckin’ expect to get caught up in other gang shit.”

“That’s not our fault, to be fair,” Nova says, and grins.

It’s dazzling. That smile stops the beat of Aleks’ heart, for just a split second. Nova’s got perfect white teeth and lines in the corner of his eyes, like all he ever does is smile, but they stay wide instead of crinkling up like most people’s do. It’s… shit, it’s probably one of the most natural, best smiles Aleks has ever seen, and he blinks at him and then turns away, feeling heat burning in his cheeks all of a sudden. What the fuck. He swallows, still tasting acrid blood in the back of his throat and he clears it awkwardly, peeking up over the top of the desk with the very tip of his head while his heart starts to pounding.

The cops are still outside, and he slumps back down, takes his hand away to see if the nosebleed’s stopped yet. He’s not a big fan of getting popped in the face, which is what happened when the cops showed up and the gang fight broke out; Aleks had assumed that ducking into this building would’ve helped him out, but apparently not.

The bleeding looks to have stopped, and he sniffles again.

“Man,” Nova says after a moment, “you’re not very talkative, are you?”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Aleks wipes the blood off his face with his wet t-shirt collar and glares at Nova over the edge of it. Nova’s just watching him with his eyebrows raised, like the fact that they’re both squatting behind a desk in a dark lobby while the cops search for them doesn’t bother him any.

Aleks wants to hate him, but he has to admit that past a lot of what he had initially considered, he does seem kind of… friendly’s not the right word, nor is open. There’s just something about him that seems to draw Aleks to him, he supposes. He sighs loudly and sits, rests his wrists on the tops of his knees.

“And you’re really annoying,” he mutters.

Nova smirks at him.

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” He sits down too, with a gentle _oof_ sound, scratches at some of his short black hair for a second or two before he rests his cheek on his own shoulder, looking at Aleks up and down with just his eyes. “Seriously, though, the game that bad in Russia that you come to this shitshow?”

Aleks rolls his eyes again, sniffs once and shrugs.

“Lots of things are bad in Russia,” he answers after a moment. “Wasn’t a lot there for me, I guess.”

“You’re not gonna find a lot here either,” Nova says sagely, still leaning on his shoulder. It makes his words a little muddled, but there’s definitely something softer about his tone. “What’d you do, hop the boat?”

“...yeah,” Aleks admits, turning his gun over in his hands over and over again. “Got off in New York, and hitchhiked my way here. I dunno. Seemed like a good idea at the time.” Suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that he’s given away far too much information to someone he shouldn’t even trust, he clears his throat and shifts a bit, tries to crane his neck around to catch a glimpse of Kootra.

He’s still pressed up against the wall, but he’s stretching out and looking out the door now, pulls a bit of a curious face. It’s dark and the rain’s still pouring, but Aleks can see a little bit of relief dawning on his face as he sighs.

“I think we might be clear to move,” Kootra says, still staring out the door, and Nova immediately stands straight up, stretching out his back and groaning. Aleks slowly raises too, watches as Nova rolls his head once to get out some of the cracks and then crosses his arms.

“You _think,_ ” he says mockingly, and Kootra throws him a dry look. “You keep thinkin’ like that, you’re gonna get yourself killed one day, Koots.”

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Kootra replies, looking out the door again. Aleks stays quiet, mostly out of a sense of self-preservation, and he watches as Kootra checks the chamber of his gun quickly and then sighs, squints a little at Nova and then at Aleks as he looks between the two of them. “Well, Immortal, if you still wanted to help us out I’m afraid we don’t have much left, but you could probably tag along with Nova -”

“ _What?_ ”

“- because I,” Kootra continues, louder to be heard over the sound of Nova’s shout, “need to dodge the freakin’ cops and go talk to Sly about our contact. You know, the one whose brains I got a bath in.” He looks over at Aleks, looks a bit placating. “And you. Sorry about your nose, by the way. I genuinely didn’t expect the cops to show up.”

“Yeah, that happens a lot with him,” Nova mutters under his breath, sounding fondly exasperated, and Aleks tries not to grin out of stubbornness as Nova raises his voice back to normal - or normal for him, it seems. “Well, what the fuck ever, you want the new guy to tag along then I guess I don’t got a fucking choice, do I?”

Kootra winks at him.

“That’s the spirit.”

“I don’t suppose I get a say in this,” Aleks finally says, trying to sound as flat as possible. Kootra seems… amiable enough, or at least purposefully giving off that sort of friendly air that gets people comfortable, but he’s still got a goddamn bone to pick with Nova and he’d rather not be forced to spend any quality time with him at all. Especially not with that damn _smile._

“What, don’t wanna spend any time with little ol’ me?” Nova says, sounding almost as unamused as Aleks feels, and Aleks shoots him both a sweet and humorless grin.

“Not particularly, no.”

“And here I thought we were connecting, you and me,” Nova replies, gesturing between the two of them with his gun. Aleks just continues to stare at him, hoping his point gets across, but Nova seems to have skin made of steel because he just shrugs and shoves his gun into the holster clipped to his belt, stretches out. “Whatever. I’ll show the new kid the ropes.”

“I didn’t say I was actually going to join up,” Aleks tries, without much conviction, and Nova raises an eyebrow.

“Thought you were tryin’ to hop on our dicks like a year ago,” he mentions calmly, and Aleks can feel his cheeks turning hot. Again, Kootra sighs, like he’s exhausted. “Now we’re practically handing you a gold-trimmed invite and you’re throwing it in the trash?”

“Okay,” Kootra says loudly, while Aleks tries to sputter out a response, “just - I’ll be back in a little bit, so you guys can handle getting along on the playground for a few hours, right? You can show him one of the burner apartments, you guys can dry off there until I get back.”

Nova gives him a wink-finger guns combo, and it’s clear Kootra’s got to battle the instinct to roll his eyes before he vaguely finger guns back, one at Nova and one at Aleks.

“Don’t kill each other, if you can help it,” he says, and Aleks watches as he carefully pushes open the glass doors and slips out into the night, the rain still coming down hard. The door shuts with a gentle tap, and Aleks can just barely make out Kootra looking around a corner and then vanishing.

It’s quiet, after that. They both sort of stand there, a bit awkwardly on Aleks’ part, before Nova sighs heavily and scratches at his hair again. He closes an eye and scrunches up his nose as he does so, and the whole thing paints such a normal, almost cute image that Aleks could almost forget that Nova’s got a reputation, and that Aleks sort of hates him on principle.

“Well,” Nova says, and lowers his hand. “Koots says for you to tag along, guess that’s what we’re gonna do. Come on.”

Aleks considers just saying fuck it and walking away, because it’s not like he has any real motivation to go with Nova. The guy hasn’t done much but offend him and then look mildly interested for a second or two before going back to being offensive, and Aleks - though he had been curious about the Creatures initially - really would prefer to work alone. He’s still got blood on him and he’s soaked through to the bone, and the last thing he wants to do is _tag along_ with a guy like this.

“Fine,” he says, against his better judgement, and finally holsters his gun, too. He’s got a knife in his boot and another one in his back pocket; worse comes to worse, he won’t be totally unarmed if he takes the chance to trust Nova for at least a couple of hours. He follows him as they head towards the back instead of going out the front like Kootra had done, and then they’re back out in the rain.

It hasn’t really settled down all that much, and Aleks watches as Nova pulls a hood over his head and starts a jog towards an alleyway. Again, it’s not something that Aleks is really all that sure about, but he sighs to himself and follows along, pulling up his own hood as he goes. It’s not going to make much of a difference, since his clothes are already sopping anyway, but he just pushes his wet bangs out of his eyes and keeps up the pace.

“I wasn’t ‘hopping on your dick’, by the way,” he says after they’ve gone a few blocks, and Nova snorts. It’s sort of a startled kind of sound, so Aleks hurries to clarify. “I just - I heard from a friend about you guys, thought I wanted to work with a crew before I decided I liked it better on my own.”

“Bein’ on your own’s gonna get you killed,” Nova muses thoughtfully, slows more to a power walk that Aleks falls in line with. He even makes something as simple as wearing a hood in the rain look handsome. “I mean, Koots is pretty interested in gettin’ more guys, so you’ve got a pretty good chance.”

“What about you?” Aleks say after a moment, and Nova looks sideways at him.

“What about me?”

“Getting more guys,” Aleks repeats, doesn’t know why he cares so much. “Like, how many do you have now?”

He gets another grin for that one, although this one is wry.

“You’re asking way too many questions, _Immortal,_ ” he says, and it sounds like it ought to be snide, but instead it comes off as gentle teasing. “You know questions like that can get you killed, right?” Before Aleks can answer, though, he shrugs his shoulders, makes a sort of inquisitive face. “I dunno. Would be nice to not have to do so much, I guess.”

Aleks swallows a little, still tastes the blood diluted in his teeth. Their shoes slap wetly against the pavement as they walk, a companionable bit of silence falling between the two of them. Aleks hasn’t met a lot of people since he came to America - really the only one he’s kept any sort of touch with is Brett, and even then Brett’s not in Los Santos half the time - and he’s quite learned to live on his own. He makes do.

But it might be nice.

They walk for a little bit, neither of them saying very much, until they get to an old-ish apartment building that Aleks has passed by now and again. He looks up at it a bit critically, at the crumbling bricks and the flickering light above the door, and wrinkles his nose a little bit.

Nova must see him, because he chuckles a little.

“What?” he asks, sounding amused, “you think we’re gonna shell out the big bucks for a burner place? Come on.”

That makes sense, he supposes, and Aleks trails after him as Nova opens the door and then shakes his hood off, a bit like a dog. It’s kind of cold inside, and it smells a bit like mold and dust, but he just sighs a little and starts walking up the stairs. His shoes clunk on the old wooden steps, creaking enough that Aleks feels a bit unsafe, but as they hit the second floor the wood gives way to brick instead. The whole place seems like it might just barely be hanging on.

They climb up to the seventh floor, and Nova leads him down a hallway to the last door on the left.

“It’s not much,” he says as he digs out the keys from his pocket, “and it certainly ain’t home. But it’s enough, when you need a place to stay.”

He’s not wrong. It’s a tiny apartment, not very furnished and not very impressive, but there’s a couch and an old TV that looks like it was bought at a Salvation Army, some dishes in a drainer next to the sink. Nova hums distractedly and sets the keys on the counter before he looks over at Aleks, eyes going up and down for a second as he watches Aleks take in the room. Aleks shuts the door quietly behind him, and then they’re both looking at each other for a long moment.

Nova sighs.

“Alright, listen,” he says, and spreads his hands out in front of him before he reaches for his gun. Aleks stiffens immediately, but Nova just keeps their eye contact and sets the gun on the table. He never looks away, and as soon as he lets go of it Aleks feels his spine relax, just a bit. “Truce? I wanna call a truce. Okay? No fuckin’ firefights or nothin’ in the burner place.”

Aleks tries to frown.

“You haven’t really convinced me yet, man.”

Nova grins at him.

“Haven’t really convinced you otherwise though, either, have I?”

There’s a lot Aleks could use to dispute that fact, but there’s a nasty little part of his brain that argues with him. Nova had, after all, only had a gun on him because Aleks had a gun on his partner, and once Aleks had lowered his gun then so had he. And more importantly, he really wants to get dried off. He’s kind of sick of being soaked.

He sighs, and without breaking their eye contact the way that Nova had done, he reaches for his own gun, keeps his fingers pointedly spread and off the trigger as he sets it down next to Nova’s. He’s going to have to clean it later, since it got soaked in the rain, but for right now he can deal. He still has both of his knives, so he doesn’t feel entirely defenseless.

Nova’s grin turns into a bit of a smile, and he nods his head a little.

“Thanks, man,” he says, and Aleks’ heart thumps in his chest as he clears his throat.

“Whatever. Where the fuck am I gonna get clean clothes, I don’t have any on me. Can I take a shower at least?”

This time, Nova laughs, shaking his head.

“God, you’re such a little shit,” he says through his laughter, and Aleks watches as he starts shrugging off his wet coat, then his hoodie, leaves behind nothing but a t-shirt and jeans underneath. He looks smaller, somehow, like the clothes gave him most of his mass, but he’s still taller than Aleks and he’s got a leanness to him that doesn’t speak to muscle so much as a wiry cleverness. He eyes Aleks up and down critically before he says, “you look like you’d probably fit into Shay’s clothes. He left some here, I think.”

Aleks clears his throat.

“Shay another one of you guys?” he asks, and stops staring.

Nova rolls his eyes, but blessedly doesn’t take off anything more.

“Yeah, and he’s a fuckin’ shit like you. Koots wanted us to have _codenames,_ ” here he does little hand-quotes, like he’s disgusted, “so Shay gave us some shit string of letters that don’t even make sense, and then when we called his ass out on it he was like, fine, here’s the first half of my stupid first name. So yeah, you’re lookin’ at a real group of winners if you decide you wanna join up with us.”

Aleks, who chose his own codename for a stupid reason, clears his throat again.

“Yeah. Sounds like it.”

Nova gives him a bit of a side-eye, but he keeps grinning as he squints into the other room and then walks away.

Before he can help himself, Aleks glances at his wrist.

There’s a beaded bracelet covering the tattoo, and then another that’s black and braided. It makes the tattoo impossible to see, and Aleks doesn’t know if that’s a blessing or not. He’s taken to wearing a leather cuff, like Brett’s got, since he’s not sure whether he wants his own tattoo out in the open now that he’s started to make a name for himself. He’s thought about getting more, non-soulmate tattoos on his left arm, now that his right sleeve is mostly done.

Well, fuck. Now he’s just standing there in the kitchen, soaking wet and dripping rainwater onto the floor, trying to figure out what he wants to do with his situation. He hadn’t liked Nova at all, initially, and for some damn good reasons, he feels. But that’s… that’s far too much of a stretch. And Aleks doesn’t even _want_ that. He sniffs hard, rubs away some of whatever blood is left on his face, and waits.

Damn though. Damn that smile.

Nova comes back a couple of minutes later, while Aleks has been driven to shouting _you don’t want that_ in his head over and over again, and deposits a bundle of clothing on the counter next to their guns. Jeans, t-shirt, hoodie. They look like they’ll probably fit, and Nova gestures vaguely at them as he stands back a little.

“Yeah, these look like they’ll fit your scrawny ass,” he says, sounding distracted. “There’s only one shower so wait your fuckin’ turn, ‘cause I don’t feel like sharing - “

“I’m the one with blood and brains all over me!”

“That got washed away in the rain, you fuckin’ drama queen,” Nova says, flapping a hand in Aleks’ direction dismissively. “Anyway, Koots texted me, he said we should probably stay here for a bit while the cops do whatever the fuck it is they do. Hope you don’t mind local channels.”

“I hate this,” Aleks says immediately, glowering without any real force, and Nova shakes his head, still with that grin on his face.

“We’ll find ways to keep ourselves busy,” he says, and gives Aleks a once-over with an eyebrow raised. It’s a very, _very_ deliberate move. It’s _bold,_ is what it is, and Aleks has to fight down the urge to babble out insults and curses while his face turns red. He can give it, sure, when it comes to passes and come-ons, and he’s certainly had his share of one night stands, but holy fuck. Nova had a gun to his head an hour ago.

“What the fuck _ever,_ man,” is what he finally settles on, and Nova laughs at him as he disappears into the bathroom. Aleks watches him go, and then huffs and sets about tugging his wet clothes off. They don’t come off easy, and just to be contrary he dumps them into a wet heap on the kitchen floor and stands there in his boxers and nothing else as he heads towards the sink, manages to rinse his head off like that with some dishsoap. His nose sort of aches, but it’s not broken, so that’s at least a definite plus. After that he reaches for the paper towels next to the sink, and starts trying to dry himself off. It’s a bit of a tedious process, but he’s feeling especially difficult right now so he keeps on doing it.

He can hear the shower running in the bathroom and he huffs loudly into the apartment and starts to tug the clothes on once he’s dry. The pants are just a tad too loose, but the t-shirt fits all right and the hoodie is a comforting warmth after being stuck shivering in cold clothes in the middle of fall. He sighs, toes at his old clothes for a second before he makes his way towards what he assumes is the living room. There’s the TV, plus a decent enough sized couch. It’s a bit on the older side, with some holes on the right arm and on one of the back cushions, but as soon as he sinks into it he lets himself relax.

It feels… nice. Secure, maybe.

He doesn’t realize that he’d let his eyes drift shut when he hears, very distinctly, “you’re awful trusting all of a sudden.”

Aleks snaps his eyes open, finds Nova watching him curiously from where he’s leaning on the doorway. He doesn’t have his gun trained on Aleks, though, doesn’t have a gun at all nor does he look particularly dangerous. He’s just wearing a t-shirt and some baggy jeans, just staring at Aleks curiously. Aleks finds himself deflating, just a little bit. There’s something kinder about Nova without all the bulk of his clothes, something softer around the edges.

“I’m fuckin’ tired,” he mumbles, and rubs at his eyes. “Plus if I’m gonna die, well, fuck it. Good riddance, I guess.”

Nova blinks a little.

“What, don’t got anybody waiting for you back home who might miss you?”

It’s an innocent enough question, but Aleks still hesitates before answering.

“Not really.” He shrugs. “Got one friend here, and nobody in Russia. It’s kind of nice, actually. Being alone.”

There’s a bit of quiet for a moment, and then Nova tilts his chin.

“What about…” he hesitates, and then gestures towards Aleks’ left. “You know.”

A bit nonplussed, and suddenly uncomfortable, Aleks crosses his arms.

“That’s… that’s private,” he says quietly, and Nova seems to accept that answer well enough. He huffs a little, crosses the living room and sits down hard next to Aleks. The couch wheezes underneath their combined weight and then Nova spreads himself out a little, sinks into the couch and closes his eyes too. He looks a bit more relaxed than he had been, and Aleks glances out of the corner of his eyes as he looks at him. Strong nose and jawline, soft cheeks, fuzzy hair and beard. He’s handsome, _really_ handsome, and Aleks feels his cheeks going hot again.

“You’re staring at me,” Nova says, eyes still closed, and the corner of his mouth turns up. “See somethin’ you like?”

“Staring at the hugeass fuckin’ booger in your nose, actually,” Aleks snaps immediately, turning away again. He can tell that Nova is trying to discreetly wipe at his face, and that gives him a small sense of pride that he managed to fluster him just a little. He wishes he had his own clothes to settle down in; these smell like a detergent that’s not his, and it feels a little distant, but they’re clearly well-worn. The hoodie is a bit thin around the elbows and in the pockets, but it’s bright purple and it’s comfortable and Aleks sighs and pulls the hood up over his wet hair.

They settle into a bit of a lull as Nova turns the TV on, but it’s just the news. It’s ironically the story about the exact gang violence they’d found themselves in, and Nova chuckles a little under his breath as they watch. There’s not a single mention of the three of them, and that’s comforting on some level. Aleks finds his eyes closing again.

“You know, if you’re so fuckin’ tired, you can use the bed,” Nova says finally, after Aleks has almost drifted off; he jerks hard, sits back up straight. “I’m not really ready to go to sleep yet but the TV’s in here, so.”

“I’m fine,” Aleks mumbles, shakes his head a bit until the hood dislodges. “It’s whatever. I’m not tired.”

Nova sighs loudly.

“You’re so annoying, you know that?” he says, and pushes himself off the couch. “Like, Jesus, you’re already such a pain in the ass. You’re lucky you’re all cute and shit or I’d be fuckin’ over you already.”

Aleks can’t help the eyebrow wiggle, even though his stomach turns over.

“You think I’m cute?”

It’s hard to tell, but he thinks Nova might go a bit pink.

“Well, you were. Now you’ve gone and ruined it completely.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, wrinkles his nose up again like he’s smelled something funny. “C’mon, I’m gonna show you the bedroom so you can get your punk ass out of my fuckin’ face.”

Aleks can’t help but laugh as he gets up; mostly he feels proud of himself for getting back at him, for making Nova even a little bit flustered. But man, as soon as he sees that bed he feels the fatigue crash down on him. It’d be dumb as fuck to go to sleep for real with someone he barely knows in the other room - someone in the business too, no less - and Brett’s going to murder him if he doesn’t actually get murdered for real first, but damn. That bed looks like a king sized with satin pillows and Egyptian cotton.

“I don’t even know if I can trust you,” Aleks says after a moment. “Jesus. This seems like a fuckin’ set up.”

“We called a truce,” Nova says immediately, and he sound almost offended. Aleks watches as he crosses his arms, frowns a little. “Dude, I may do a lot of shitty things, but I don’t go back on a fuckin’ truce. Plus Kootra’d kick my ass if I killed you before we got to take you for a test drive.”

“Do you just, like, put sexual innuendo into everything you say?”

Nova rolls his eyes.

“No, you’re just the dirty fuck who hears it in everything I say. Go to fuckin’ bed, you loser.”

Aleks stares at him for a moment. He knows nothing about Nova beyond what he’s learned tonight and what he already knew from his reputation. He knows that he’s a bit ruthless, and that he’s rarely not at Kootra’s side. He knows that Nova’s got a bit of a temper, and that he’s good with a gun, bad with his fists if the rumors are anything to go by. And he knows that the Creatures could use a pickpocket, and that Nova doesn’t seem too against the idea.

But fuck. He also knows that Nova has really warm brown eyes, and a beautiful smile, and he seems like he might have a good heart underneath all the sarcasm, and Aleks hates that for one second he _wants._ He doesn’t know why he does, or what it _is_ he wants, but he just does.

He just wants, pure and simple.

“The fuck are you looking at,” Nova says after a moment, but it’s devoid of any malice. He’s just watching Aleks, his eyes flicking back and forth. They’re both just looking at each other in the threshold of the shitty little bedroom, and Aleks’ heart beats too fast in his chest, and his breath picks up a little bit. He clears his throat, scratches at the little bit of scruff he hadn’t shaved off in the morning.

“Nothing. What the fuck,” he mumbles, and then scrubs at his face. “Whatever, dude, just - “

“I’m not gonna fucking shoot you,” Nova says, like he knew what Aleks was going to say, and Aleks glares a little at him but doesn’t say anything. There’s something charged in the air between the two of them, like the buzz that lightning leaves behind after it strikes. It’s churning somewhere in the pit of Aleks’ stomach, and he realizes that Nova’s maybe an inch taller. He has to tilt his chin just a little bit to keep their eye contact.

“You’re staring at me again,” Nova says, also staring.

Aleks sniffs.

“So?”

“ _So,_ I wanna know what you’re fuckin’ staring at me for.”

They’ve been leaning closer, Aleks realizes a bit dimly, closing that distance from the lightning he still feels buzzing against his lips. Nova’s looking down at him, eyelashes long and dark and pretty, and Aleks ought to move away. He ought to just leave, not even sleep in the bed but run far away, because - because fuck, now he wants to _know,_ he wants to know and he hates how much he wants it. It’s personal, it’s something that Aleks has always held close to his heart and never let anyone else figure out.

“Why did you - “ he starts, stops again. Nova doesn’t move, and they’re less than a couple inches apart. “Why did you ask about my - “

“That’s private,” Nova echoes immediately, but there’s that grin on his face, soft and sweet and as bright as the sun, and Aleks wants him and hates him in equal measure. An hour ago he’d held a gun to his head, and now he’s just looking at Aleks like he’s the most amazing thing he’s ever seen. Aleks can feel the thumping of his own heart in his chest, loud in his ears.

He wonders if this is what it feels like.

“I’m not showing you,” he says in a hoarse whisper, lowers his gaze to instead stare at Nova’s mouth, and Nova lifts his head a little bit. Aleks’ eyes follow. “So don’t fuckin’ think, like, seducing me or whatever is gonna get you what you want.”

“Then don’t show me,” Nova replies, almost easily, like that was the answer he was waiting for, “and let’s just get to the good part if you’re gonna be such a priss about it. No ties or whatever. We can look later.”

“Fuck you,” Aleks replies immediately, and Nova groans.

“Man, I am _trying -_ ”

Aleks twists his hands into Nova’s shirt and just pulls, because he’s sick and tired of Nova’s dumb jokes and his bright eyes and his smile, he’s sick of how it makes him feel so he just _does,_ rather than tries to think. He follows some instinct that tells him to drag Nova in for a kiss so that’s what he does. It’s awkward and it’s rough and Nova makes a soft, startled noise into his mouth but it’s also the best damn kiss of his life.

Nova only fumbles for a second or two before his hands find the hoodie Aleks has on and tugs, pulls him in close so that their bodies line up. It’s like a syncing up of motions, or maybe their heartbeats, and Aleks - he’s never felt this before. He feels like a giddy school boy, feels like he could smile into this kiss and all he’d taste is a smile right back. He tests the theory out, grins because he can’t help himself and indeed, Nova’s grin tastes like everything Aleks had never realized he was missing.

It couldn’t be, though.

A rush of terror hits him, hits him hard when Nova trails his lips down to the underside of Aleks’ jaw. His beard scrapes a bit, sends jolts up and down Aleks’ spine and he thinks about how much he wants that, how much he wants to just grab Nova’s wrist and see for himself, see if it’s really his name there but -

But what if it isn’t? What if this is all just a fucking fluke, a joke, what if he’s secretly just always wanted it so badly that he’s reading it into a situation where it’s not there? The thought terrifies him. What if whatever this is - it’s not real, they compare names and they’re different, and Aleks has to live with the knowledge that whatever he wanted out of this just doesn’t _exist._

Worst still, what if it _is_?

That though is the one that scares him. What if Nova is - is his soulmate, what if it’s _his_ name on Aleks’ wrist? They run dangerous, terrible lives, they get shot at to buy their bread and the thought of having to deal with that, of having to deal with how close he came to being _shot_ by his soulmate simply because they happened to be in the same room together - somehow, that’s worse.

“I don’t wanna - “ he starts, runs his hands through Nova’s hair; it’s short but it’s soft, so damned soft, and Aleks is afraid more than he’s ever been, “I don’t wanna know yet, I’m - I’m fucking sorry, man, I don’t wanna know - “

“You’re so fucking _dramatic,_ ” Nova says against his skin, and it sounds strained, a little fond. “Jesus…”

“I wanna call a truce,” Aleks continues, says it in a rush before the fucking need to just kiss Nova until he can’t speak is damn near all-encompassing. “Just - not yet, man, not yet - “

Strong hands grab him by either side of his face, and his gaze is forced up as Nova stares at him, a bit flushed but very serious. He’s got nice hands, calloused on his palms but long fingers that make him feel - safe, maybe. One thumb rubs just under his right eye, and it stings a bit from where he’d been punched. He winces, hisses a little at the sharp pain, but Nova just shakes him a bit.

“Calm the fuck down, you fuckin’ dummy,” Nova says, sounds almost exasperated. “Yeah. We’ll call a truce. No looking, no sharing. One night stand, whatever.” His eyes are so damn big and brown when he looks at Aleks, earnest and a little impatient. “Can I fuckin’ blow you now or something?”

Something jolts sharply through Aleks’ spine and right into his dick, and he has to blink a couple of times before answering.

“Holy fuck, yeah.”

Nova rolls his eyes.

“Amazing, you can talk again.” He moves his hands down and grabs Aleks by the collar, drags him towards the bed and Aleks goes more than willingly enough. The bed’s not very big, which is fine in the long run, and it creaks a little bit when Aleks topples back into it. That’s fine, too. Nova’s solid and warm when he lands on top of him, and they tangle up together in a way that tells Aleks he had been wrong all along. Maybe the soulmate thing wasn’t… wasn’t the worst thing that could ever happen.

Maybe not the best, he doesn’t know yet, but when Nova drags his pants down to around his thighs and mouths at his cock through his boxers, it’s _definitely_ not the worst thing.

Nova’s good at blowjobs, is what Aleks learns in the embarrassing ten minutes it takes for him to come. It’s pretty much the best one he’s ever had, since he had a nasty habit of fucking around a lot (with protection, at least) both in Russia and in Los Santos when he first moved, but this one is definitely a blowjob for the books. Nova runs his tongue under the underside just right for Aleks to jolt his hips up and choke him by accident, and that gets him a watery glare before Nova swallows him down again.

“You know how much of a fuckin’ gentleman I am for swallowing?” Nova gripes hoarsely, while Aleks catches his breath. “I’m a fuckin’ _gentleman._ ”

“C’mere, I’ll, I’ll return the favor,” Aleks says weakly, one arm slung over his eyes like a swooning maiden while the other makes a vague attempt to gesture Nova over. He can hear the exaggerated sigh before Nova crawls up so that his knees are on either side of Aleks’ waist, and it’s with that nice warm weight that Aleks can pull himself together and unzip his pants.

Nova’s got a fucking great cock, all things considered, and though it’s rude Aleks still spits in his hand before he strokes him once, hard and firm. Nova jolts at that, a hard twitch as he gasps and squeezes his eyes tightly shut. After that it’s a game of getting to choose between watching the head of his cock as it passes through the tight curl of Aleks’ fist, or getting to see every spasm in his eyebrows and every shuddering exhalation that widens his mouth.

“I’m, you, oh _fuck_ ,” Nova says sharply, suddenly, and Aleks feels his thighs twitch hard and then he comes, spurts of it trailing over Aleks’ knuckles and down towards his wrist. He’s got a good o-face, open and expressive and a little bit intoxicating, and Aleks lets him breathe and calm down a bit before he starts mildly licking the mess off his hand.

“You’re a _fucking_ nightmare, you, you little shit,” Nova breathes, watching his motions with rapt attention.

Aleks shrugs, grins a little.

“I’m a gentleman.”

Nova huffs at him and shifts so that he can lay down on his side next to Aleks. The bed’s still a bit too small for two young men in their early twenties to comfortably share, but Aleks feels warm and sleepy and happy, and he doesn’t really complain when Nova sighs into his ear and wraps up around him.

“This is so not how I expected tonight to go,” he mumbles tiredly, eyes already closed. Aleks can feel his lashes fluttering against the back of his neck.

“And to think you almost shot me,” Aleks reminds him, twisting his toes into the shitty sheets and shoving his nose into the pillow. It still stings a bit, from where he’d been punched, but it’s remedied by the gentle shake of Nova’s chuckle against his back.

“Whatever, go to sleep, you bitch.”

It’s an easy enough thing to do, and Aleks, for the first time since he came to America, falls asleep with someone else’s warmth to lull him there. It feels… almost like it could be normal. It feels like he might be able to get used to this.

That scares him more than anything else, though.

When he wakes up in the morning, it’s to an otherwise empty bed. He sits up immediately, startled and, though he won’t admit it, a little hurt as he looks around with the sheets pooled in his lap. Oh. So that’s… that’s how it is, then. He looks down at his wrist, at the cuff still firmly clicked there, covering the tattoo, and he swallows hard as he looks around again. There’s sunlight streaming in through the window, and he can see the dust in the beams of light as they hit the floor.

Well, he was a fucking idiot.

The first thing he does is gingerly touch his face, and though it still hurts and he probably has a bruise, he can at least confirm that nothing’s broken. The second thing he does is run his fingers through his hair; it dried while it was wet, and it’s got gentle waves that make it an absolute rat’s nest on his head. He’ll have to get that cut. The third thing he does is grab his phone, which he doesn’t remember setting on the bedside table, and finds that there’s a few messages waiting for him there.

_You’ve got a shit phone. anyway this is my number and you have it now. I had to go pick up a package. Let koots know if you’re still interested._

He checks the second one.

_This is nova obviously_

He rolls his eyes and checks the third one.

_Nice dick by the way, don’t know if i told you last night. Anyway I tucked it back into your pants for you you fuckin weak-kneed harlot_

That one gets him to curse out loud and turn red in the face again, and he shoves his phone down onto the bed and yells into his hands. What an absolute bastard. What a handsome, charming, evil son of a bitch. Aleks doesn’t really know what he wants from him, but he does know that it’s not the last he’ll see of him.

When he checks his contacts he finds that two have been added. One is Nova’s, and other one is labeled _Kootra._

He sighs, types out a quick message that gets his heart to thumping not with embarrassment, but the exhilaration of what he’s about to do.

_This is Immortal. I’m in._

It takes a little bit of time, but he gets an answer just as he’s closing the door to the apartment behind himself.

_Well then, welcome to the Creatures, Immortal._

What he gets in the end is something he hadn’t planned for. Kootra sends him coordinates to get picked up, and he’s greeted by a friendly guy with a beard that simply refers to himself as Dan. Aleks can’t help but question the whole codename thing, but Dan just shrugs at him.

“How do you know it’s not my codename?” he asks easily, and… well, Aleks can’t really argue with that. He drives him to the Hub, and it’s… it’s something, really. Bigger than Aleks had been expecting, but still small enough to accommodate their gang of less than ten. Almost like an office, maybe, but Aleks looks around with wide eyes and then nearly runs into a blond guy who stares at him for a moment and then sighs.

“Nova gave you my hoodie, I see,” he says, already looking exhausted. “And my t-shirt. And my pants. Okay, well. Enjoy those, I guess, they’re yours now.”

“Jesus,” Aleks says immediately, tries shrugging off the hoodie. “Sorry, man, I didn’t mean to -”

“It’s fine,” Shay says, with a hand up. “Seriously, I left those there because I don’t really wear them all that much. I just didn’t expect Nova to give them to someone else,” and this he adds to someone just behind Aleks. Aleks can tell just by the fond and exasperated tone who it is, but he still turns to see that Nova’s come up behind him. He’s back in all his layers, looks a little bigger, but he just winks at Aleks before wrapping an arm around Shay’s shoulders.

“I figured you wouldn’t mind,” he says cheerfully, and Shay sighs loudly, but lets himself be swayed around a bit. “I’ll get you a new hoodie ‘cause I love you so much, how ‘bout that?”

“You going to buy it, or steal it?”

“...I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

It gets Aleks to laugh. He hadn’t expected this, and he’ll be honest about it. It’s clear that they’re all close, that they work well together and know each other properly; it’s something that Aleks has never really had, never sought out because he didn’t think he’d need it. Working alone has always been a good thing for him, gave him a lot of outs and no ties to break or leave behind. But he laughs, and he sees the way that Nova watches him laugh, gets him to grin a little too as he shakes Shay again.

“See? _He_ thinks I’m funny.”

“And God bless him for that,” Shay mutters, and ducks under Nova’s arm to escape his grasp. “Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got twenty things to do, because no one else is gonna do them. Have fun with your… whatever he is. Have fun, newbie.”

“You’re gonna regret not spending quality time with us,” Nova says in a fake upset voice, and Shay walks away backwards with his arms held out.

“The only thing I regret,” he says loudly as he goes, “is joining this goddamn mess of a gang. I’m gonna die here, and it’s gonna be your fault somehow.”

“He’s just melodramatic,” Nova says as Aleks blinks a couple of times. “You’ll get used to it.”

And, despite Aleks’ uncertainty, he does. He gets used to it; gets used to doing runs with other people, with having to coordinate things. He gets used to waking up every morning not having to worry about if he’ll get breakfast, because apparently the Hub has a kitchen and they’ve all stocked up on cereal. It’s… a weird life that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to fit into, but he does. He eats cereal with Shay in the morning and he shoots his gun now and then with Spoons when they go out to some abandoned field. He steals Kootra’s red hat and laughs when Kootra grabs it and then holds it above his head so that Aleks can’t reach, he borrows movies from Dan that are 90% Batman.

Most importantly, he gets to be around Nova.

He’s pissed off at himself, mostly, for how much he’s gone and developed a crush. They don’t fool around again, probably because neither one of them are sure on where they stand. They still haven’t gone and broken their truce with regards to the tattoos on their wrists, and Aleks isn’t sure what he wants to do about it. Everyone around him covers theirs, too, and maybe that’s for the better. Maybe that’s the way it’s meant to be.

But he gets to spend time with Nova, gets to go on runs with him now and again and that’s worth something, in the end. It’s better than a quick fuck in a shitty apartment, because it builds something more there, something slow and easy. Nova smiles at him, and the whole damn world goes a little brighter. Aleks touches the tattoo on his wrist sometimes, and he wonders how to breach the subject. Wonders if he wants to.

The question’s answered for him, and it’s answered in a spectacular fashion about a month later.

More accurately, life shits on him.

“Hey.”

Aleks looks up from his gun - a new one he’d filched off a dead army guy on their last heist, it’s shiny and has a good grip, a solid recoil that doesn’t kill his shoulder - and watches as Sly sits down in front of him, regards him for a moment. He likes Sly a lot. He’s as good as his name suggests, has a charming smile that gets people to believe every word he says, but right now he’s just frowning as he regards Aleks for a long moment.

Aleks looks around a bit.

“Uh… hey, man?” he tries, and Sly leans back, runs a hand through his hair for a moment.

“Listen,” he says quietly, quiet enough that Aleks has to lean forward. “I like you, dude, you’re a good guy so I just…” He hesitates for a long moment, just staring at him, and Aleks is about to ask what the fuck he wants when he starts again. “We really needed somebody with good pickpocketing skills, you know? Back when we were first looking at you. You knew that. So Kootra really wanted you on our team, we’d all heard about you and we agreed on it.”

Aleks puts the gun down, confused. He does do a lot of that, he’ll admit to it, but he doesn’t know what that has to do with anything.

Sly makes it easy for him by continuing, tapping on the table almost nervously like he doesn’t want to say whatever it is he has to.

“It’s just… I see the way you look at Nova, man. You’ve got the big eyes and the stupid grin and,” he grimaces a bit, “you shouldn’t… do that. Not with Nova.”

Perplexed, Aleks blinks a couple of times.

“I’m not… what?” He shakes his head. “I don’t fucking get what you’re driving at here.”

Sly runs a hand down his face, sighs.

“I know what you think you want, but it’s not gonna happen,” he says softly. “I mean, come on, man. Nobody told you?”

“ _What,_ ” Aleks repeats, the confusion giving way to frustration, and Sly sighs.

“Dude, you know that Kootra and Nova are soulmates, right?” he asks, and the world fucking shatters right there. Aleks gapes at him a bit, his mouth dropping open as he just… stares at Sly. He can vaguely feel his hands as they start to shake, his teeth going numb with something raw and violent bubbling up inside of his throat as Sly keeps talking. “Like, I mean, we all sort of knew that from day one when we joined up. Thought you would’ve seen that too, it’s pretty obvious just from the way they’re always together.”

The reality of what Sly is telling him sets in, and before he’s quite processed it he’s shoving himself away from the table, getting up on trembling knees. He doesn’t really know what he wants to do, but he knows that he wants to find Nova _immediately._ He can hear Sly talking to him, but there’s a roar in his ears that won’t go away, and he just walks too fast until he finds what he’s looking for.

And of course. Of fucking course he sees it now, sees the way that Kootra says something and Nova turns his head and smirks a bit as he listens. It’s intimate, in the way of two people with years of practiced ease, two people who know each other better than anyone else in the world and it eats at him immediately, thick acid that bites and burns and hisses evilly in his ears and his throat.

Nova looks over at him, and something changes in his expression that Aleks doesn’t bother to try and decipher because instead he simply grabs Nova by the collar and _pulls,_ shoves him into the wall and gets right in his face while people shout around them.

“What the _fuck,_ ” Nova snaps immediately, wriggling, “what the fuck are you doing, asshole?”

“You’re a fucking _liar,_ ” Aleks hisses, angrier than he’s ever been, more hurt than he ever thought he could feel. The one time, the one time he really let himself _hope,_ and it gets torn out from under him in the worst way possible. He feels hollowed out, exposed for everyone to see. “What, you just fuckin’ - you thought that if we fucked that would make it easier for me to join or something?”

Nova’s staring at him, stunned, and Aleks really hopes the words hit not only him but Kootra too, who seems absolutely motionless.

“...what are you talking about?” Nova says after a moment, quiet in a way that tells Aleks he’s not going to back down if it comes to blows. “You fuckin’ high or something?”

Aleks is almost glad that he’s too pissed off for there to be tears in his eyes, because he just pushes harder, flattens Nova more forcibly against the wall. Nova’s bigger than him, and probably stronger too, but Aleks is _mad._ It makes up for the difference.

“You made me think that _you_ were my - “ and he can’t even get the word out, so he takes a shuddering breath and glares as hard as he can, sees the way that Nova’s hands tighten on his wrists where he had grabbed Aleks during the initial shove. “I was gonna fuckin’ _show you_ and now I’m glad I didn’t because you’re just a lying _bitch,_ you just - you never bothered to tell me you already - “ He gestures at Kootra, frozen in shock in the hallway. “You already _found yours_. You just let me fuckin’ play pretend - “

The reality of what Aleks is accusing him of clearly settles in Nova’s wide eyes. Aleks is shaking, he’s so damn angry, and he can see the way that Nova reads his expression. His lips part a little as he looks for something to say, but Aleks doesn’t really want to hear it all that much. There’s something in Nova’s eyes that Aleks doesn’t want to bother to try and pick apart. He’s done.

Still, Nova speaks.

“Man,” he says softly, huffing out a quiet laugh. “I guess James is really gonna have his work cut out for him if this is the sort of temper you’ve got.”

He can hear Kootra finally moving, can see it out of the corner of his eye, but Aleks doesn’t care. All that red hot anger in his veins is replaced immediately by an icy coldness that spreads to his toes, to the tips of his fingers, shakes him to his very core as he stares at Nova with slow, growing horror as he thinks back to that first night, when he had fallen asleep.

“...you looked,” he whispers, so furious that it makes way to sheer numbness. The betrayal of it is startling, blinding in its hurt, and his shaking just gets worse.

Nova just smiles vaguely at him and doesn’t say anything, and that’s all the answer Aleks needs.

“That’s enough,” Kootra says, sounds like he’s speaking through a thick plastic tube because Aleks barely hears it. He can feel Kootra prying his fingers out of Nova’s shirt and he goes willingly enough, mostly because he doesn’t want to look at him anymore. He never wants to see him again - the one thing he might want to do is punch him in his stupid face, but Kootra grabs him and starts to drag him away. He can see how Nova doesn’t move away from the wall.

It’s only when they’re both on the other side of the building that Aleks wrenches his hands out of Kootra’s grasp, though he has a feeling it’s only because he’s allowed it. Kootra’s staring at him with an unreadable expression, but Aleks doesn’t very much care anymore. He wants out. He wants to run as far away as he can and he wants to hide away his shame and lick his wounds until it doesn’t hurt quite as much.

“I quit,” he says in a shaking voice, staring up at him. He hopes Kootra knows what his stupid fucking _soulmate_ does behind his back. He hopes it eats away at him. “I’m done with this.”

“No,” Kootra says, far too quickly. “No, Immortal, don’t - listen, I - this is bad. I know it’s bad, it’s… it’s messed up what he did, it’s - “ He hesitates. “It’s shitty, even.”

That almost gets Aleks to laugh hollowly. How fucked up for the situation to be, that he gets a curse word out of Kootra. He can tell that Kootra’s out of his element, that he doesn’t know what to say to someone to get them to stay when the only thing they want to do is leave. He doesn’t care.

“I want to leave,” he says in a hard voice, backing away. “Fuck you. Fuck this.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Kootra says, desperate, and Aleks wishes he could find it in himself to wonder why he gives such a damn about whether or not Aleks stays. “Look, just - you don’t have to see him, or talk to him, you don’t have to go on runs with him but we _need_ you right now, just for a little bit. That’s all. Just - maybe go for a walk, cool off? And I’ll talk to him, I promise.”

Promises mean diddly shit to Aleks now, and he’s aware of it, but he just glares up at Kootra for a long moment and then huffs out a bitter laugh.

“What the fuck ever,” he mutters. “All my shit’s in there anyway. I don’t - I don’t care. I don’t know. Fuck this.”

“Go cool off,” Kootra repeats, pleading with him now. “Seriously. We can figure this out somehow.”

Aleks doesn’t dignify that with an answer. He just turns on his heel and leaves, keeps walking in a straight line for as long as he’s able before the reality of it finally settles itself, iron and concrete, into his feet and he has to crash to the ground and just breathe.

All his life, he got made fun of for the name on his wrist. All the other kids fucking laughed at him because he didn’t have the beautiful lettering they all had, all his fucking life he tried not to be angry about it, tried to understand this stupid fucking soulmate thing. He tried to figure out what he _wanted_ from it. He came to America because the name on his wrist wasn’t Russian, had never been Russian. He’d learned English so he could talk to his soulmate one day.

His entire life built around a person he’s never met, and he’s never regretted it as much as he does right now.

The script’s always been beautiful. He rips off the cuff and stares down at it, fingers curling loosely. He’s memorized how it looks, the soft loop of the _J_ and the gentle trail of the _s_ as it fades away. James. He’s always wondered who James was. He still wonders, and now with an intense _hatred_ he hopes he never finds out.

He wants to take his knife and stab it into his skin over and over until he never sees the name again, because it’s fucking worthless, it’s stupid, but that’s _dramatic,_ isn’t it? That’s dramatic, and it’s unnecessary, and he almost laughs at himself. Slowly he scoots himself over until his back’s to the wall of the alleyway he’s found himself in.

He hates Nova, and now… now he _hates_ James, too. He hopes that wherever he is, he’s as unhappy as Aleks is now, hopes he can feel it from however far away he is. Aleks hopes he never finds him. He’ll spend the rest of his life alone, because it’s better than this _shit._

Aleks buries his face in his hands and takes a deep breath, lets it out again slowly as he turns and stares at the intricate designs on his right arm. He’d been working hard on those tattoos, finally had them finished a couple of months ago from an artist he trusted, and he’d really wanted to start on his left but he hadn’t known where to begin.

Taking another deep breath, he starts to silently make plans for what he wants on his left arm. It’s still up in the air, as far as the designs go, but he does know one thing: he never wants to find James, and he’s going to make sure James can never find him, either.

He’s better off alone, anyway.

_**end part one.** _


End file.
